


We Could Be Heroes Just for One Day

by midnighteverlark



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bev never left Derry, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, OC bullies because we need Convenient Villains, Period-Typical Homophobia, Poly!Losers, Superpowers, Through the Years, character studies?, don't worry they're a few years older by then, light smut in later chapters, nobody forgets anybody, pennywise is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnighteverlark/pseuds/midnighteverlark
Summary: Bill finds a yo-yo. Eddie treats a paper cut. Stan sees a pattern. Richie sends a message. Mike waters his plants. Ben sees the truth. Bev stands firm.In the summer of 1989, the Losers Club defeated Pennywise once and for all - and unbeknownst to them, in killing It, they absorbed some of its powers. But as the seasons pass, they have more to deal with than just puzzling out their strange new abilities. The Losers have started to pair off, but they can't help but feel that something isn't quite right. It's silly, though - you can't be in love with all of your best friends. Can you?Basically: growing up, healing, dates, working through internalized homophobia, gradual poly coalescence, powers, various Seasonal Aesthetics, some light vigilante-ing, and kind of a lot of swearing.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Everyone/Everyone, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Poly!Losers - Relationship, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 19
Kudos: 125
Collections: Poly Losers Club Fic Exchange Vol.2





	1. Bill Finds a Yo-Yo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panikki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panikki/gifts).



> This is for the Poly Losers Club Fic Exchange Vol.2 (@poly-losers-club on Tumblr)! Prompted by @panikki :)  
> I’m not as caught up on this fandom as I should be, I’m sorry if I got any details wrong! I feel like I didn’t get some of their personalities right hhhhhhhstress. Also, while this is mostly based on the movies (so, it starts in 1989), it also has some book!canon mashed up in there too.
> 
> I’m going to post this as chapters, because if it as a oneshot it would be RIDICULOUSLY long. I’ll be finishing up the rest over the week and getting it completely done by the due date (HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE PEEPS), but I’m posting the first half now because I want attention.

**Summer, 1989**

* * *

I

I will be king

And you

You will be queen

Though nothing

Will drive them away

We can beat them

Just for one day

* * *

Bill already lost Georgie. 

And in a way, he lost his house and parents, too. It’s not the same house that it used to be; they’re not the same parents. Losing Georgie made everything different, empty. When he goes home, all he sees is the absence of his little brother. Clothes, toys, stuffed animals. Finding things only reminds him of what he lost. Today it’s a yo-yo.

Bill was willing to give himself to the clown’s bloodthirst if it meant he wouldn’t lose any more people he loves. He cannot,  _ will not _ lose any more.

That’s a strange thought. Any more people he loves. Or, maybe, not so strange. Of course he loves his friends. Their rough-and-tumble little band of weirdos, their Losers Club. Of course he loves them, the way you love any close friend. Like brothers, like soldiers on the field. The way you love your favorite song, your bike, the book that got you through the darkest year of your life. The way you love your childhood best friend, or the city that always makes your chest ache when you see it whether you’ve been there before or not, or the stuffed animal that you still keep in your room although you’d never admit it to anyone. With the kind of ferocious, tender loyalty you develop as a young child for your two-hour playground buddy - you play pretend, you romp about, you argue, you whisper deep dark secrets to each other, you make very serious promises with hooked pinkies, you careen across the playground holding hands, bellowing at imaginary foes, and then your mother calls you and you say goodbye and never see each other again. 

Except, the Losers had a real foe to defeat, and they didn’t part ways when the dust settled and the blood started to dry.

He loves the Losers, he knows he does. And as for Bev - oh, Bill loves Beverly Marsh. Her clear blue eyes, her bravery - always ready to fight for what’s right. Her sunny dresses, her rings, the key she wears around her neck even now, now that her father is gone and she doesn’t have to take cautionary measures like that anymore. Her freckles. Even the tobacco-campfire smell of cigarettes that soaks into the vibrant curls of her hair sometimes, though Bill doesn’t like to see her smoke. He loves seeing her perch in front of her keyboard and pick out curious melodies, half soothing and half strange, sometimes upbeat but usually contemplative. He loves talking late into the night - his parents never mention the phone bill, and her aunt is so guilty over what happened to her that she’d allow her niece anything in the world. So they rack up the phone bills, receivers pulled into bed with them, curly cords wrapped around fingers as they talk about books, pets, dreams, old childhood stories made new again because the other hasn’t heard them yet. 

He loves Bev. And that’s... that’s... Is it different?

Course it is. It’s a different kind of love. It’s a movie kind of love. He still can’t quite believe it. If It was a nightmare, Bev is like waking up from one. It’s a giddy-excited, want-to-be-with-her-all-the-time, heart-thumping, port-in-the-storm love. The others take every opportunity to tease them, but, can Bill be blamed for leaning over to kiss his first-ever real girlfriend now and again? And come to think of it, it’s usually Bev that leans in first. So, technically not his fault.

They do many of the same things that the rest of the Losers do, sure. They go to the movie theater, ride bikes - with Bev perched behind Bill on Silver - they fly kites and play ping-pong in her aunt’s dilapidated game room and get ice cream on hot days. But it’s different when it’s a date, versus  _ just hanging out.  _ They’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Officially. They decided a few days after - well, after that last day in the sewers. And that’s different than what he has with the rest of the Losers. Ben, or Eddie, or Mike, or Richie, or Stan. When he sees a movie or rides bikes with the guys,  _ obviously _ it’s not the same, it’s not a date, it’s just hanging out. Palling around. Like always. Nothing is different.

But Bill can’t shake the niggling little whisper that there’s something wrong about that thought. Maybe there’s something wrong with  _ him. _ Well, aside from the obvious. He  _ feels _ different, after the oath.

He could be imagining it. Like Eddie, always convincing himself of allergies and colds. It’s just, he can’t shake the feeling that something  _ is _ different. He can’t place it, except for the vague, troubling sense that strange things keep happening. And that’s less than ideal. On the one hand, in a town like Derry, there’s no escaping strange occurrences. On the other hand, they should have stopped after It died. Right? But strange things keep turning up at Bill’s fingertips without him having to try. Literally. He’ll plunge his hand into the penny jar and come up with the silver dollar his father was grumbling about two weeks ago. He’ll open his closet and there’s that shirt he thought maybe he lost, half-hidden under a jacket. But mostly, lately, it’s been Georgie’s things. Crayon drawings, a single sock.

Today it’s a yo-yo. But not just any yo-yo. No, it just had to be the particular yo-yo that Georgie cried for when he lost it a year ago. It’s wooden, with a butterfly painted on each side and bright red yarn as a string, because its original string snapped back when it belonged to Bill. It was Georgie’s favorite. He had been getting really good at it, though he was barely tall enough to let the string unfurl all the way, and losing it was a matter of great sorrow - in his eyes, at least. He said the plastic one he had gotten in his stocking just wasn’t the same. 

Bill had promised his baby brother that he’d find it for him. And now he has. All that time, it was wedged behind the little-kid dresser. He happened to catch sight of the red yarn as he walked into the room.

Bill fits the ring of yarn over his right middle finger - a tight fit, though it was comically loose on Georgie - and winds it up snugly into its track. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he gives it one bob, two, and then it wobbles and twirls on the end of its string and he sits heavily on the end of Georgie’s bed. Biting his lip against tears.

_ We did it,  _ he thinks, sending the thought out into the universe. Maybe somehow, somewhere, it’ll reach its intended audience.  _ We killed it. It won’t hurt anyone else. _

And just in case, they have their oath. But really, that was more cautionary than anything. Duct tape over a cement seal. He knew - somehow, he’s sure that all of them knew - that It was gone. It writhed and shifted, flickering from fear to fear in mounting desperation, mummy to leper to painting to Mr. Marsh to burn victims to giant crab to swamp monster.

In the end, it was a spider. Something insidious and otherworldly, unnatural. Not a clown, not even something remotely humanoid, but alien. And while they backed it into a corner, yelling to each other and swinging improvised weapons, smashing it over its shiny exoskeleton, it was Eddie that dealt the final blow. It opened its maw, maybe to chomp down on his head or maybe to catch him in its deadlights, and instead of finding out which, Eddie plunged his uninjured arm down its gullet, inhaler in hand - 

_ That’s battery acid! _

A clown cannot become a painted woman, or a leper, or a young dead boy half-decayed. Children cannot be killed by werewolves or zombies. And  beclometasone dipropionate is not battery acid, and cannot defeat a great evil.

But this is Derry.

_ It’s dead, _ he thinks again - maybe comforting himself, this time, as well as Georgie.  He tangles his fingers up in the vivid string, the red a splash of color in the blue evening that’s been stealing into the house like a thief.

_ Dead as a doorknob, Big Bill, _ Richie’s voice says in his head.  _ Probably crawling with maggots right now. How do you think extraterrestrial monsters decay? _

“Beep beep, R-R-Richie,” Bill mutters aloud, though of course it’s only his own brain teasing him in the voice of his best friend. Still, it seems to do the trick. Richie’s voice goes quiet.

For a moment, he feels a pang of regret. Crazy or not, he’d rather be hearing voices than be alone - not today.

Walking Georgie to school on the first day of the new school year is tradition. Walking alone this year, without the bouncy, aggravating presence by his side, was... hard. It stirred up things in him thicker and blacker than the pond muck at the bottom of the quarry, and now here he is, sitting on the foot of Georgie’s bed, his face hot and no doubt blotchy.

He allows himself half an hour. And then he winds up the yo-yo, sets it on Georgie’s bedside table, and leaves, closing the door behind him. Someday, maybe someday soon, his parents will start packing this room away. For now it remains a time capsule.

* * *

It’s still summer, but the season is fading. The quarry, deep and green and musty, is beginning to cool. Still, Mike shows up to the underground club house with damp clothes and wet hair, shaking drops of water onto Bill and Bev to make them laugh. Mike has been hanging around the quarry a lot, lately. Apparently he rarely went swimming before, but Ben showed him the Losers’ favorite watery hangout spot, and now just as often as not he can be found there in the sweltering late-summer evenings.

Today was, as evidenced by the water on Mike’s clothes and in his hair, one of those evenings. Now that he’s here, all seven of them are in the clubhouse. The little room has been nothing short of a blessing in the late-summer heatwave; always cool, only a little warm in the middle of the day. Full of their treasures - comics, a pilfered stop sign, Ben’s piggy bank, the Walkman that Bill rediscovered in Richie’s closet last week, a repurposed soup can full of Bill’s colored pencils. Also, spiders. A frankly unreasonable amount of spiders. But they have several fly swatters on standby for just that purpose, and there have been marginally less bugs in here ever since Ben and Richie thought it would be a good idea to spray down the whole place with bug spray. Unfortunately, the club house was somewhat unusable for several days after they chemical-bombed the place, and it still has a vaguely eye-watering, pungent aroma of  _ Off!  _ Ben has since installed a fan that blows air up and out, in the hopes to clear out the air a little.

Now, Ben is finishing up weaving together a chain of somewhat heat-wilted dandelions. He’s been working studiously on it for the past half hour, and Bill isn’t surprised at all when he holds it out bashfully towards Bev. He pretends not to take much notice as she accepts it with a bow and arranges it on her curls. What else can he do? It’s pretty obvious that Ben likes her, and Bill can’t exactly blame him. But over the summer, when everyone went their separate ways, Bev was the only one that never walked away from Bill outside of Neibolt. Really, they’ve been together for most of the summer - it was only after that first kiss that they became “official.” 

He’s not exactly jealous. Well, he is... kind of. More just uncomfortable. Sometimes he wants to say,  _ Sorry for stealing your crush, _ but what good would that do?

A little later, when the egg timer goes off and it’s Bill’s turn in the hammock, he looks up in surprise to find a second flower chain held out in his direction.

“What’s th-that for?”

Ben just shrugs and mutters something about having flowers left over.

Bill feels silly. But he takes it. He’d rather be vaguely embarrassed (and a little pleased) and endure Richie and Stan laughing at him than make Ben feel bad. And anyway, he gets the feeling that it was meant to cheer him up. Ben always can tell when someone is having a bad week.

“You look lovely,” Stan is saying, smirking a little without looking up from his book, and Richie is kicking Ben lightly with a socked foot.

“What, I don’t get one?” he’s saying, hand lifted to his sternum in mock-hurt. “Or what about Spaghetti, eh? Fine lookin’ chap, why, I bet he’d look right sporting.”

Eddie pulls his shower cap a little more firmly over his head, glaring. “You put a flower crown on me and I’ll -”

“You can have mine, Richie,” Bev laughs, starting to lift it from her hair and advancing on him, but Ben is already on his feet and heading towards the ladder.

“No, it’s okay,” he’s saying, “I can just make some more.”

From his place in the hammock, Bill doesn’t have a clear view of what happened. All he knows is that Bev was moving across the club house, and Ben was making his way up the ladder, and Eddie was scrambling to avoid Richie, who was taking a swipe at him while ducking to avoid Bev, and all at once something buckles. He hears the  _ crack, _ and sees the tumble of motion out of the corner of his eye, and then everyone is yelling and he’s all tangled up in the hammock in his attempt to lurch up out of it. He struggles, flips over and falls on his face, then scrambles to his feet and bolts to the heavy beam that dislodged itself from the ceiling, fell at a forty five degree angle, and struck his girlfriend across the face.

The clubhouse is a cacophony of distressed yelps -

“Shit!”

“Bev!”

“What the hell happened?”

“Bev! Marshmallow! Speak to me, are you dead?”

She’s on her back, the wind knocked out of her, partway pinned under the plank of old wood.

“Get it off, get it off her -”

“No, wait, don’t move it, the whole ceiling might come down -”

“Get it off!”

“Stop moving it! Bev, see if you can wriggle out -”

“Help me lift -”

“Stop fucking moving it, you’re gonna collapse the whole roof!”

“Oh my god, oh my god -”

But Bev is catching her breath again, sliding out from underneath the beam, pushing up onto her elbows, repeating, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” in a gasp. Eddie, closest to her, is the one that helps her sit up, bracing her with his left arm out of habit even though he doesn’t have his cast anymore. A moment later she’s covered in a flock of concerned boys, all afraid to hug her too tightly in case she’s hurt.

Stan shoos away the crowd and starts checking her over immediately, calm practicality masking the worry in his voice as he uses their lantern to check her pupils for signs of concussion.

“Can you roll your neck? Does it hurt? Does your chest hurt?”

“No, it’s fine -”

“I’m so sorry, Bev, I am so sorry,” Ben keeps repeating. “I had no idea that was loose, I should have checked it, I am so sorry -”

Bill squats at Stan’s side, his heart in his throat. Distantly, he’s aware that he’s still wearing the chain of dandelions, but after his undignified tumble from the hammock it’s skewed halfway off his head, hanging over one ear. Bev catches sight of it and laughs, still a little winded from having the breath knocked out of her. The sound unravels some of the knots in his stomach. She’s not bleeding, or concussed - or even bruised, by the looks of it. No teeth knocked out, nothing broken.

Before they can feel too relieved, Ben is pulling them all to their feet, shoving them angrily towards the ladder, ordering them all out. He keeps repeating that it’s not safe, tearfully promising all of them that he’ll fix it, he’s going to work day and night until he can reinforce the whole structure, and Mike is patting him and saying that it’s not his fault, that they kicked something while they were playing around, it’s not his fault.

Bev’s blouse has a line of grime on it from where the old beam glanced across her torso, but in the days that follow, not a single bruise blooms on her skin. Bill chalks it up to the first piece of good luck they’ve had all summer. 


	2. Eddie Treats a Papercut

**Winter, 1989**

* * *

Maybe we're lying

Then you better not stay

But we could be safer

Just for one day

* * *

Eddie’s afraid that something is wrong with him.

Then again, hasn’t that always been his fear? Hasn’t he been trying to shake that gnawing anxiety since he can remember? The thing is, this time is different. He swears it is. This isn’t a sore throat, or a bug bite that might actually be a rash, or the vague prickling worry that he could have a tumor and he’d never know it until it was too late. This doesn’t have anything to do with cough drops or hand sanitizer, or an article he read about sunburns leading to skin cancer, or a cautionary tale his mother told him. It’s not even particularly menacing, unto itself, it’s just... odd.

Strange things have been happening ever since the end of the summer. It puts Eddie on edge. Strange things, in Derry, are not good signs. But the thing is, they’re not the same kind of strange as before. At the beginning of the summer,  _ strange _ meant kids vanishing into thin air, it meant nightmares and vague unease, it meant curfews and missing posters and a monster of many forms. The sense of being watched. All of that is gone now. No, these new strange things are smaller, less malicious. You might not even notice them until they started to pile up.

As Richie would say, in his best imitation of the movie, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K...”

Here’s one of them: Stan, sitting on the ground, facing a corner, with his arms wrapped around his knees, hyperventilating.

Eddie’s cast has been off for months, but every once in a while, he swears he still feels a twinge in that arm. Dark, tangled greenery has been replaced with bare, gray branches and a glaze of sleet, frozen and unfrozen, frozen and unfrozen every few days. Every once in a while, clouds will dump snow over Maine, and everything is soft and pristine. Then, a day or two will pass and the salted roads turn gray and brown with ruts of slush, and the rest of the snow gets muddled up with footprints and dirt. The last time Eddie’s arm hurt, for real, a heat wave was rolling over Derry. Now, tiny crystals of ice drift down from the black sky - not so much snowflakes as a fine, cold sprinkling of glitter. Bursts of steam puff from Stan’s lips with every hard outbreath, and Eddie’s red knit cap is barely hanging on by a thread, at risk of falling right off his head at any second. It got shaken loose while they were running.

Bullies are hydras. Cut off one head, two more grow back. The Bowers gang may be gone, but, unfortunately for Eddie and his friends, the world is full of people who love to step on other people to feel taller. Where there are deer, there will be wolves, and where there are losers, there will be older, cooler kids to shout slurs across the street and throw sharp chunks of dirty ice at their heads.

When they first stopped, in an alleyway somewhere behind the movie theater, Eddie thought that Stan was breathing hard because they had been running. And Eddie laughed, and said, “Wow, fuckin’ assholes,” and shook up his inhalor and took a gasp from it, and he only realized something was wrong when Stan didn’t catch his breath.

This has never happened before. Or, well, maybe it has, but Eddie has never been here to see it. Now he’s crouching by Stan, hands trembling a little, wanting to help and not knowing what to do. 

“Hey, it’s - they’re gone,” he says uselessly. “I don’t even think they followed us past Pine. It’s okay.”

But Stan is shaking his head. He has his palms cupped firmly over his eyes, and suddenly Eddie’s stomach flips. Bad memories?

“It’s not that,” Stan gasps.

“What is it?” He feels stupid. It’s a stupid question to ask, but how is he supposed to say,  _ Is your brain playing the lady with the Picasso face on repeat again? Yeah, sometimes I can’t stop seeing the leper dude. Sucks. Anyway, I don’t know how to help you. _

Richie would be better at this. Richie knows Stan, knows all the moods he gets into. Not that Eddie  _ doesn’t, _ but Richie and Stan go way, way back. And Richie, for all his hyperactiveness, has unexpected depths of competence and empathy when it’s most needed. He’d know what dumb dirty joke to crack to distract Stan from the memories of the painting lady’s shark-like mouth.

“I can’t -” Stan takes a minute to slow his breaths. His earmuffs are askew and Eddie wonders if it would help to take them off. “I can’t stop - seeing them.”

“I know. Shit, man, I’m really sorry, that s-”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s not  _ that, _ it’s not him, it’s -” He struggles for words, struggles for breath, and abruptly tears the earmuffs from his head. His curls fall over his face. 

He can’t help it. He presses. “What?”

“The patterns.”

If Eddie wasn’t concerned before, he is deeply so now. “The what?”

“Look, I know! I know, but I - I  _ saw _ where that ice ball was going to land. Like a trajectory. I saw it. I’ve b-been seeing things  _ all the time, _ and I can’t make it stop.” 

What the fuck. Is going on.

Where’s Bill? He’s supposed to take care of things like this. He’s supposed to fix things like this. Bill always has a plan, an idea. He always knows what to do. Eddie is completely lost. He doesn’t know what’s going on or what he’s supposed to do.

But he does know what it’s like to struggle for breath. So he starts with that.

Historically, Stan has not been a fan of breathing exercises. Ben likes them, and Mike - god, he wishes Mike was here - but Stan usually rolls his eyes at them. Not tonight. 

Footsteps crunch over the frost-crusted ground and Eddie whirls - but lo and behold, it’s the man himself.

“Hey, Bill,” he sighs, leaning against the brick wall in relief. “How’d you find us?”

“Dunno.”

As usual, Bev isn’t far behind. She’s intimidatingly adorable in a patchwork coat and fingerless gloves, her nose pink from cold. A third figure rounds the corner behind her: Ben, the pom-pom on his hat bobbing as he hurries along. The fine glitter of snow, by now, has thickened to a proper thin flurry, and the streetlight outside of the alley lights up a bar of airborne flakes orange-gold behind them.

“Y-y-you guys okay?” Bill squats down on the other side of Stan, who by now is breathing more evenly. “Stan?”

* * *

_ Don’t you feel like something’s weird? _

That’s what Eddie said, that night after Bill found them in the alley. They all went to the late-night diner, after that, and shared a basketful of fries and two large milkshakes while the snow fell peacefully outside the window.

_ It’s gone, Eddie, _ Bev had reminded him, gently. 

_ No. _ That had been Stan.  _ He’s right. Something’s wrong. _

Eddie tries not to think about it. Not right now. He has one week of the school semester left before holiday break, and in that week he has three projects and four final tests to do. Which is why he and his boyfriend are in the library. Eddie ducks down a little further to hide a stupid grin behind the textbook he’s supposed to be studying.

If he’s being honest with himself, Eddie may have had a small (not so small) crush on Mike before they even officially met, after the rock fight at the Kenduskeag. He was a quiet, intriguing presence around town, biking around to deliver packets of meat from his bike basket, showing up in the library now and again. It didn’t hurt anything that he had visibly strong arms and a big, sweet smile.

And then Neibolt happened - that first day at Neibolt. When he broke his arm. Afterwards, in their helter-skelter race from the derelict house, Mike scooped Eddie up and deposited him neatly in his bike basket, and through the pain of the broken bone and the glassy-eyed terror of what just happened, Eddie remembers looking up at him and thinking,  _ oh, wow. _

Usually, the idea of a crush like that would terrify him. He’d shrink away from it, push it down, try to forget it. Not only is it the exact opposite of what his dumb brain is  _ supposed  _ to be doing, but the idea of being vulnerable with someone like that - it - how can he face the idea of being that exposed to someone else’s judgement? Letting someone in like that? Richie has brought magazines down into their club house before, cackling, waving around the pages full of naked men and women. Eddie can’t fathom ever being comfortable enough with someone to be so literally and figuratively naked with them. And he doesn’t think he ever will. And besides that, do you know how many nasty things you can transfer between two people just by  _ kissing? _ Relationships seemed terrifying, not to mention just vaguely unappetizing.

But Mike didn’t scare him like that. He was so gentle and kind, despite his strength, that Eddie just couldn’t imagine Mike ever hurting him or pushing him past his comfort zone. To date, he never has.

Of course, before Neibolt, Eddie never would have used the word  _ crush, _ even just in his own mind. But the thing about horrifying paranormal trauma, it really puts things into perspective for you. Eddie walked away from Neibolt that last day, his arm soaked up to the shoulder in It spit and his inhaler melted into a warped mess from battery acid, with his worldview all kinds of shaken up. And after all the awful impossibility of what happened this summer, it didn’t seem like quite as big of a deal to crush on the sweet, quiet, strong boy from the edge of town. From a distance. And then from a little closer, as everyone gelled together tighter than ever after their oath. And then close enough to tease and play around, and close enough to call each other’s houses to talk every now and again, and close enough to have secret sleepovers that Eddie’s mother wouldn’t have approved of if she found out.

It was the biggest shock of Eddie’s life when he finally realized that Mike had been flirting  _ back  _ that whole time.

That’s not to say that the guilt is gone, or that he doesn’t feel like an absolute freak, because boy howdy does he. There’s a voice that won’t leave him alone, a voice that sounds an awful lot like his mother, that whispers,  _ You’re sick, there’s something wrong with you, it’s a disease. _ If his mother knew that he snuck out of the house last night to build a snowman in the Hanlon’s back fields and kiss a boy in the moonlight, with cold noses and warm lips, he’d be off to some clinic before he could say  _ fuck. _

But, in a weird way, he’s not afraid. Well. He’s terrified. But he doesn’t want to run, not from this. Keeping this secret from his mother feels good - it feels like a rebellion, and one he desperately needs. Weeks after defeating It, he broke down and returned to Neibolt, wading through the swollen stalks and bobbing heads of sunflowers to locate the fanny pack he had discarded before the battle. He thought he was brave enough to leave it behind. In that moment, before they fought It, he was. But going back to his house every night, back to his mother, it... well. Any momentary bravery he might have had, that day in the sewers, it left just as quickly as it came. Eddie isn’t brave. Not like Bill or Bev. He’s not clever and handy like Ben, or observant and witty like Stan, or smart and sweet like Mike, or bold and creative like Richie. But when he’s with his boyfriend, Eddie feels like he’s a little more of all of those things. Brave, especially. Not just in regards to his mother, but in the face of the whole world. This whole town - which, for all intents and purposes, is the only world he’s ever known.

He wonders if he’ll ever get out of here. And in wondering that, Ben’s voice comes drifting out of his memory -  _ Good! I’ll be forty and far away from here. _ When Eddie is forty, will he be long gone? Or will he still be stuck in this shitty town where children disappear and adults don’t care?

Except, that’s over. It’s over because they stopped it.

Eddie doesn’t think he’s brave, no matter what Richie and the others say. He’s not. Picking up that fanny pack again proved that. But this type of soft, quiet rebellion? The type that includes walking side-by-side with Mike on his grandfather’s farm, or studying in the library with their ankles hooked together under the table, or stealing kisses under the mistletoe at Beverly’s aunt’s house when no one else was in the room? This, he can do.

And - as Mike once pointed out in that gentle, sensible way of his - for people like them, just existing is sometimes a rebellion in and of itself.

People like them. Him and Mike. Them against the world - or, at least, against Derry. And for a moment - just a moment - a little wash of sadness dashes over him. Something feels incomplete - like it’s almost, but not  _ quite _ right.

He knows - at least, he’s slowly figuring out, after working through this shit all summer, all fall, and all of winter so far - that Mike isn’t the only casualty of Eddie’s “deviance,” as pundits on TV put it. Richie...

Is straight. Grossly straight. The amount of jokes he makes about sex with girls is, frankly, ridiculous. And he’s always making eyes at Bev when he thinks nobody is looking.

_ Bill, _ whispers something in the back of Eddie’s mind, and he summarily quashes it. Bill is brave and good and impressive, sure, but Eddie can’t have a crush on every one of his friends. Who’s next, Bev? Although, if Eddie was ever to kiss a girl, Bev may not be the worst -

_ Okay, stop it, _ he thinks to himself, angrily, and gives himself a little shake. This is ridiculous. And anyway, he already has a boyfriend. A very kind, intelligent boyfriend who’s been quizzing him for his American History final. So, that’s that on that. Case closed.

_ Hey, Eds, you think I can fit this whole apple in my mouth? _

Eddie looks up sharply, glaring, ready to launch into a playful argument - but no Richie. He glances around the library. He was so sure he heard Richie’s voice, like he was right in front of him.

Come to think of it, that’s not the first time this month that that’s happened. He must finally be losing it.

_ Can’t even get rid of him when he’s not around, _ he thinks to himself, snorting softly, and he swears he hears an answering indignant,  _ Hey. _

“What?”

Mike noticed that he was making faces to himself.

“Nothing.” He puts down the textbook that he hasn’t been paying attention to for the past ten minutes. “Tired. Ugh.”

“Yeah. Think we should call it quits after -  _ ow.” _

“What? What’d you do?”

Mike sticks the tip of his index finger in his mouth, grimacing. “Papercut,” he says around it. “Good one.”

Eddie digs in his backpack. “I have antibacterial cream and bandaids.”

“It’s just a papercut, I’m sure I don’t need -”

“Hand,” he instructs, holding out his own hand, and Mike obeys with a chuckle, setting his hand in Eddie’s. The cut is welling blood -  _ don’t need a bandaid, my ass -  _ and Eddie dabs at it with a kleenex. It looks like it stings. He grimaces in sympathy. For a second he feels a stupid urge to kiss it, like that’s gonna help, and then he remembers they’re in public.

“Hold that,” he says, and starts opening up a bandaid wrapper.

But when he lifts the kleenex and prepares to smear a fingertip of cream over the cut, it’s gone. The blood wipes away, leaving... nothing. Actually, no -  _ there  _ it is. A tiny sliver, just barely grazing the skin. A scratch. Not even deep enough to draw blood.

“Huh,” Mike says. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as I -”

“No, see, this is what I’ve been talking about,” Eddie hisses. He looks around, on the off-chance that anyone is paying attention to them, and then leans in. “I  _ told  _ you guys weird stuff’s been happening. That was a cut. I saw it, you saw it. Look at the kleenex!” He brandishes the red-stained piece of indistrial-white fluff. “ _ That  _ could not have produced all of  _ this!” _

Mike is thinking it over. Eddie can see the skin between his eyes crinkle up, his jaw working as if he’s rolling a marble over his tongue. He looks down and applies the cream and bandaid anyway, just in case, before he stares at his boyfriend for too long and starts blushing. 

“You said this happened with your mom?”

“A bruise, yeah. She bruised her wrist on something and made me look at it, so I went to get something to put on it and by the time I got back -”

“Gone?”

He nods. “You see? I was right. And it’s not just that, things have been...  _ happening  _ since summer. Remember when that beam fell on Bev? That thing should’ve killed her! And that time at the arcade with Ben and Richie. And last week, with Stan! I thought he was just flipping out, but he said he was  _ seeing _ things. And you said stuff’s been happening to you, too -”

“I said maybe. Could be coincidence, could be nothing. Faulty pipes or something. You know how plumbing in Derry is.” Mike rubs a thumb over the bandaid, shooting him a small, appreciative smile. Then the smile falls and his head gives a little sideways tilt. “Or.”

“Or something is weird.”

“Or something is weird,” Mike agrees.

The second occurance of the day happens when they leave the library. It’s sleeting outside - too icy to be rain, too watery to be snow - and neither of them have an umbrella. They duck and run, heading for the nearest overhang, cold winter air cutting past their cheeks - but something’s wrong. The dirty-slush-clean-pine smell of winter washes over them - the air is cold enough to make Eddie’s nostrils stick together when he inhales, he bets they’ll get another blanket of snow tonight - but there’s no accompanying splatter of moisture.

They slow, looking at each other in confusion in the glow of the streetlight. The sun already set in the late afternoon, leaving Derry twinkling with Christmas and Hanukkah lights.

Sleet around them. Sleet above them. Sleet slickening up the sidewalks and making tree branches bob. But no sleet touches either of them; their coats and hats are dry.

Eddie looks up. A few inches above their heads, the fat drops of slushy water roll right off of nothing, like there’s an invisible umbrella above them.

“Mike?” Eddie ventures. “Are you doing that?”

“I think so,” Mike replies, hoarse. He sticks out a hand, beyond the lip of the invisible umbrella. Sleet splashes on his glove.


	3. Stan Sees a Pattern

**Spring, 1990**

* * *

And we kissed, as though nothing could fall

And the shame, the shame was on the other side

* * *

Stan is afraid that the world will never go back to making sense. 

The world is supposed to have rules, it’s supposed to work according to set patterns. Like clockwork. Like equations. It’s supposed to obey the rules of physics, and the word of the Almighty, and the laws of society. And lately, it hasn’t.

Last summer, Stan walked away from their oath intending to forget as much as he could. It’s not all that hard. He’s done it with other things before - stuffed them down into the bottom of his consciousness, like stomping on paper in the garbage can to make more room. None of what happened could possibly have been real. The human mind is not supposed to comprehend things like that; there’s a reason people are said to go insane after an encounter with the unexplainable. So Stan plans to forget it. He doesn’t bring it up; he doesn’t think about it. 

It would be easier if his world wasn’t overlaid with filmy, multicolored, gently shimmering webs, lines, paths, afterimages, equations. He can look at a broken flowerpot, wonder what happened to it, and all at once a smoky ribbon of green flickers into existence between the pot and the nearby cat with dirt on its fur. When people act in repeated, predictable ways - leaving the house at the same time each morning, always buying the same coffee - he can see ghostly imprints of their path through the air, predicting the repeated pattern. Threads connect people with attachments to each other - different colors for different types of relationships. He found out one of his neighbors had a mistress because of the bright pink thread of lust, tied to his pinky, that led off down the street and faded out of view as it passed beyond Stan’s range. The red thread tied to the man’s ring finger, meanwhile, led back into his house, where his wife presumably was.

On clear nights, Stan can look up at the sky and see not only the stars, but the grid that maps them out. The spiral that Mercury makes across the sky. Right ascension and declination. The supposed images of the constellations.

They fade and eventually disappear if he’s not thinking about them, but when he does think about them, they grow more vibrant. Which is a problem. Because he _can’t stop_ thinking about them.

Sometimes, at night when he can’t sleep, he’ll reach out and gather up the six threads that branch out in different directions from his left ring finger. When the Losers are together, he knows, those threads become a web, weaving them together like a human dreamcatcher. He can feel a _hum_ if he holds them in his hand - a little shimmer of energy. 

_This one’s Richie,_ he thinks, picking out an identical thread. He doesn’t know _how_ he knows; he just knows. _Here’s Beverly. Eddie. Mike. Ben. Bill._

It wasn’t so bad during the summer. It was just building up then, gaining traction - he could tell himself that he was imagining things. Seeing things out of the corner of his eye. But by the fall it got bad, and by winter it was constant, unbearable. That was his tipping point, when he realized he was going to have to engage with it, do something about it, or it _would_ drive him mad.

His first logical explanation, after enlisting Ben and Mike’s help to do some research in the library, was synesthesia. That would explain why he sees patterns in the air that no one else does. Except, the harder he tried to convince himself that’s what it was, the less sense it made. He tried to find the connection between the patterns and some other sense - surely it was something he was hearing, setting it off, or even a smell. But it never matched up. He sucked on strong mint candies and paid close attention to the translucent, multicolored threads and whirls and numbers, but nothing changed. He listened to all different types of music, sitting on the floor in Richie’s room, while Richie said, “Anything? Anything?” and still it didn’t help. There was no change to what he saw, no response.

So, eventually, he had to scrap his theory. 

Which leads him to his next, much less pleasant explanation. 

It’s spring. The kind of chilly, sunlit spring where the days start out cold and end warm, so that you’re constantly carrying your jacket over your arm by the afternoon. Leaves are budding on the trees, denizens of Derry are beginning to undertake their yearly spring cleaning, there are rabbits on the park lawns again, and the high school bullies are beginning to emerge from their dens.

There’s Greta and her girl gang, of course, but the group that’s been giving the Losers trouble of late is led by a boy named Thomas Green. Apparently he used to live with his mother in Augusta, but this last fall he moved here to live with his dad. He quickly collected a band of followers. Magnetic people always do. He’s smart, good at baseball, popular with girls and teachers at school, and has a sharp mean streak that seems to be targeted directly at anyone he deems too unamerican. Apparently Tom’s America is populated entirely with moderately wealthy, white, fit, heterosexual Christian men.

Which means the Losers club is, by and large, screwed.

_Hey, Manly the Stanley, you’re late to your own meeting._

Stan looks at his watch in a sudden panic, steering his bike one-handed, then scowls. He has twenty whole minutes left. _Jerk._

_You looked, didn’t you?_

_Nope._

Richie talks in Stan’s head a lot. That’s Richie’s thing. Stan gets patterns, and Richie gets the ability to be annoying from a distance. And though he should hate it - it should be just as teeth-grindingly _wrong_ as all the rest of this - it’s actually kind of comforting. Because it’s a constant. It’s a touchstone. Richie has been Richie for as long as Stan can remember. Hearing Richie chatter away back there is, believe it or not, the most normal part of all this. Sometimes they even have conversations - although Richie seems to have a harder time picking up responses than he does broadcasting his own thoughts. Go figure. And anyway, there are much worse voices to have in your head.

_Will you hurry up and get here? I’m bored. I miss your dumb face._

_Go talk to Bill._

_He’s not here yet._

_Like that’s gonna stop you._

Richie goes quiet, and Stan assumes he’s off pestering someone else.

Normally, Stan doesn’t really mind talking - well, _thinking_ to Richie. Today he’s more annoyed with him than usual. This meeting is, technically, Richie’s fault.

Tom is smart enough to have picked up on the Losers’... oddities. Henry was more bark and bite than brains, but Tom... He’s perceptive. And over the months of cornering various losers with slurs, hoping to get in a good sock to the stomach, he’s started to pick up on some things. Things like Stan and Ben always looking around, strangely fixated on nothing, like insane people. Things like the incidents that always seem to happen around Mike - burst pipes, streams of water running uphill to follow him. Things like Bev’s increasing brazenness - it’s not like they can hurt her, so why should she avoid them? Why run or shrink from them when she can stand up to them without fear of being injured - physically, at least? But they’ve started to get wise to that. If the Marsh girl won’t crumble under a physical attack, there are other ways to cut a person down.

Even Eddie is getting too bold. Stan thought Eddie was on his side, but lately he’s been taking stupid risks, always with a ready explanation on the tip of his tongue -

_“I couldn’t just leave her with the cold, she would have spread it to the whole rest of the class!”_

_“I couldn’t just let him stay hurt, he was gonna bleed everywhere, that is so unsanitary -”_

And Bill.

Damn him.

Bill has a big pile of missing pet posters on his desk in his room. Stan saw it when he was visiting. He asked about it, and Bill deflected - but Stan doesn’t need an explanation. He quickly traced the patterns and put it together, even catching Bill in the act. Apparently, he’s been systematically setting out to find each and every lost kitten and family dog in Derry. As Richie would say, he’s a regular town hero. More often than not he’ll show up on the owners’ doorstep with a wriggling ball of fluff wrapped up in his own jacket - but once or twice he’s arrived, gray-faced, with a shoebox and a tearful apology instead because he didn’t get there in time.

But, surprisingly - or maybe not that surprisingly - it wasn’t Bill that really caught Tom Green’s attention. It was Richie. 

To be fair about it, technically it was Stan and Richie. Mostly Stan.

It’s Stan’s fault, that’s what this boils down to.

It’s always harder to block out the patterns when he’s stressed, and it was particularly bad yesterday. He can handle the bullies’ usual antics; he can handle the jeers, the insults and slurs, he can handle being shoved or bowled over - _Watch where you’re going, fag._ He’s used to having to jump and grab for stolen possessions as Tom’s right hand man holds them just out of reach, almost eighteen and laughing his ass off at the two speckly, scrawny little freshmen going red in the face with anger. The thing is, all of that used to be so much easier to endure, because now he can see the trajectory his bag will make through the air when they throw it over his head. He can see the rainbow tangle of threads knotting Tom’s gang together - all of them linked by loyalty and friendship and obligation and boredom and fear. He can see, just by looking, that Tom is never going to like his right hand man back the way he likes Tom, and that the girl in the group had the flu recently and has already spread it to two of the other bullies, though they haven’t felt the symptoms yet.

It’s too much. It was all too much. And when Stan covered his eyes with his hands to escape it all, their afternoon went from bad to worse. Because Richie - stupid, brave, loyal Richie - saw Stan becomming overwhelmed, and he reared up with fury. And he did something stupid.

Very stupid.

Stan doesn’t know what Richie said to them. Hell, it could have been, _Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!_ and Tom still might have bolted the way he did. If Stan wasn’t used to it, suddenly hearing a voice in his head would be cause for alarm, to be sure.

Which is why they’re having this meeting today, on the wind-chilled bank of the quarry, with a cold, fine mist of moisture dashed over them every once in a while from the gusts of the incoming storm. Stan coasts to a stop near the rocky jumble of the banks and dismounts, leaning his bike against a tree.

He wipes his palms on his slacks as he approaches the others. _It’s just a conversation,_ he tells himself. _It’s just your friends. Stop being nervous. You’re just talking._ But it’s bigger than that, and he knows it. They’ve been piecing together what’s happening to them since December, whispering about it in secret, late at night, in twos and threes. Up until now, they’ve mainly kept their lips zipped. They’ve had enough weird shit in their lives; they didn’t want any more. Or, at least, that’s what Stan figured. Whatever the reason, they’ve never really addressed it directly, openly, as a group. Like they’re about to.

Richie and Eddie are talking about X-Men when Stan sits next to them. Ben and Bev are leaning on each other, listening quietly. Bev’s head on Ben’s shoulder, his head on top of hers. A wriggle of discomfort moves through Stan’s whole body. That’s something else about his ability. He sees things - _knows_ things - that he wishes he didn’t. Like what’s happening with Beverly and Ben.

“Mike and Bill aren’t here yet?” Stan says.

“Take it back.”

“No. Cyclops is lame.”

“I will end you.” Eddie jerks a thumb at the water. “Mike’s here, he’s swimming.”

But when Stan looks out over the wind-ruffled, mossy green surface of the water, he doesn’t see Mike. He waits for him to surface. Five seconds. Then ten. Then Stan is pushing to his feet, heart starting to pound - is he stuck under? There’s some sort of plant growth down there, at the bottom, not to mention piles of metal and plastic that have accumulated from people dumping rubble into the quarry. If his foot got caught on something and he couldn’t make it to the surface - and the water is still so _cold,_ just barely unfrozen after the winter -

“He’s okay,” Ben says suddenly. He must have picked up on Stan’s spike of panic, in that uncanny way of his.

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie interjects, pausing in their X-Men debate again, “He’s fine. Don’t worry, he does this all the time.”

Stan looks to Richie, his voice tight. “Call him up?”

“Oh.” Richie seems surprised. Stan has never encouraged him to do that before - usually he’s the one discouraging things like that. “Sure.”

He looks out towards the water and his eyes go distant for a second. Then he’s back to hotly arguing his stance on Mutant politics like nothing ever happened. Seconds later, a head breaks the surface of the freezing water.

Mike swims to the bank, heaving himself out of the water and reaching for a pile of clothes that Stan didn’t notice before. He opens his mouth to snap at Mike for scaring him, but all at once he has to look away and become pointedly absorbed in watching the trajectory of a windbourne leaf. Because Mike is two feet away from him, sopping wet, and more lean and muscular than ever from his vigorous swimming routine. It’s been since last summer since Stan saw him with his shirt off. And there’s... a difference. 

Stan is good for three seconds, and then he peeks. Water streams down the back of Mike’s neck from his hair, down his back - but then he gives a sort of shake, and the water sluices right off him. Like an invisible wiper pushed it all down, from head to foot, and just like that he’s dry, boxers and all. He starts pulling on clothes.

As soon as he’s dressed, Eddie tugs on his arm. “I’m cold.”

Obligingly, Mike drapes his arms around Eddie’s shoulders.

Nobody blinks. They’re used to that. There was never really one moment when Eddie and Mike came out to the others; it was more like they just stopped hiding it, little by little, and over the past six months everyone quietly figured it out one by one. In February, Eddie and Mike sat next to each other during the Losers’ Friday movie nights. By March, Eddie more often than not curled up in Mike’s lap. And last month, they kissed in front of the others for the first time, to little more than a smile from Bev and a wolf-whistle from Richie. Eddie smacked him. Richie laughed and played innocent. And that was that.

Down in some secret corner of himself, Stan envies them. Must be nice, being able to just bare your soul and do what your heart wants. But then again, Eddie always has been brave like that.

The telltale click of Silver’s spokes alerts them to Bill’s arrival. He coasts to a stop moments later, leans his bike against Stan’s, and unties a box from where it had been lashed onto the handlebars. From this he produces a sweatshirt (“Where was that?” cries Ben, and Bill says, “Under th-the bed.”) one of Bev’s necklaces that Stan hasn’t seen in a while, a mixtape of Stan’s that he hasn’t seen in even longer, a nice, heavy fountain pen (“Oh, thank god. My grandfather would have killed me,” Mike sighs, taking it.) an old stack of baseball cards that Eddie pounces on, and a book, bookmark still stuck in the middle, that he tosses to Richie.

Stan tries to stay mad. Bill shouldn’t be doing stuff like that. It’s not as bad as the pet rescuing, but still. These abilities, these... powers of theirs... They’re not good. They don’t come from a good place. Don’t the others see that? Doesn’t Bill see that? Doesn’t he want this all to end and for life to go back to normal? But it’s hard to stay mad at Bill, especially when he just handed Stan a much-beloved mixtape that he thought he had lost for good. Bill is fundamentally good, and helpful - so serious and earnest, and yet such a goofy dumbass at the same time. Stan wishes he could hate him. He wishes a lot of things.

* * *

The Losers are split into two camps. On the one side, Stan, Eddie, and Ben, who are in favor of finding a way to send their abilities back to wherever they came from. They’ve brought nothing but trouble and hardship, and they’ve had quite enough of paranormal shit, thank you very much. On the other, the rest, in favor of learning more about them - learning to use them.

“We could use them to defend ourselves!” Bev is saying for the fifth time, and Bill says, “Sh-sh-she’s right. They’re useful.”

“We don’t even know what they are, or where they came from,” Eddie counters, but Stan cuts him off.

“Yes, we do. And it’s one more reason we shouldn’t be using them.” Everyone looks at him. Some of them already know where he’s going with this, he can tell from their expressions. “It.”

Eddie is the first to speak. “No way.”

“Think about it. What else would make sense? We kill It, and that same summer we start being able to... do things? Do you happen to know of any _other_ supernatural source that we may have acquired these abilities from? Anyway, it matches up. Bill - you said you can find things.” 

“Almost anything, if I t-t-try hard enough. And you g-guys. I can always find you guys.” 

“It could always find us, too. No matter where we were.” 

There’s a sober silence. 

Then Stan points at Richie. “What about you?” 

“Uh, I’m a telepath!” Richie tosses off with a cavalier grin. 

“Great. Yeah. I noticed. We all noticed.” 

“It didn’t do that,” Mike says, skeptical.

“Yeah,” Stan says, “but it could get into our heads. How else would it know what we were afraid of?” 

“I can tell how people are feeling,” Ben volunteers, hesitantly. “I can tell when people are scared. Like It did. But other things, too,” he rushes to add, “Good things. Everything, really.” 

Bev nods, like she’s heard this before, but Eddie says, “How?” 

“It’s like I can see it. They’re not colors, exactly, but... that’s the best way I can explain it. It’s like a cloud around people. Or, like, a mirage.” 

“So you can tell when people are happy or sad?” 

“Or scared, or excited, or violent, or truthful...” 

“You can tell when people tell the truth?” Richie cuts in, and Ben nods. 

“Sometimes, yeah. I have to be concentrating for that one.” 

“Okay, how about this: I’m not wearing underwear.” 

Ben rolls his eyes. Bev leans forward, mischievous. “Was he telling the truth?” 

“You don’t wanna know.” 

“So, when we killed It, we took on some of its powers somehow,” Mike says, getting them back on track. “Okay. So now what?”

“Now we get rid of them,” Stan reiterates, annoyed. They’re going in circles. “You guys really wanna deal with this forever? Don’t you want normal lives?”

“Nah,” Richie and Bev say at once, at the same time that Eddie says, “Yeah.”

“Maybe Stan is right,” Ben says. He’s looking down at his shoes, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “I spend enough time hearing what people think about me. I don’t want to see it too.”

“How are we supposed to get rid of them?” Mike says. “We can’t exactly just hand them back.”

Stan drops his head into his hands and combs both hands through his hair. “Look, I don’t know. Just - we shouldn’t be using them. The more we use them the stronger they’re gonna get. _And_ the more people are gonna notice.”

“We’ll be careful,” Bev says, “It’ll be okay.”

“Oh yeah? Tom Green already knows something.”

The others look sober. They’ve heard about what happened yesterday. 

“We’ll just have to m-make a p-p-plan,” Bill says eventually, and Eddie stands up, shaking his head.

“No. No more plans, Bill. No more supernatural occurrences, no more weirdness. There’s already enough wrong with me without -”

He cuts off, his voice closing off suddenly, and Stan’s stomach drops when he catches a glimpse of moisture in Eddie’s eyes before he turns away. Bev makes a sad sound in the back of her throat and Richie reaches for him, trying to catch the tail of his shirt on the way by.

“Eddie -”

Mike pushes to his feet with a sigh. He’s been on Bill’s side so far, but now Stan is watching the shimmering planes of his alignment pop back and forth with indecision. “They have a point, Bill. If they really are from It... Maybe it’s not such a good idea to use them.”

With a guilty glance back at Bev and Bill, Ben stands to follow him.

“Whatever,” Richie calls after them, “You guys can give up your awesome powers if you want, but I’m keeping mine. Have fun not being superheroes!”

“Have fun dying,” Eddie snaps back.

Richie flips him the bird. Ben grimaces at the spike of general unease and friction.

Bill and Bev shoot each other a look - a united front, as always - and that twinge of discomfort wriggles in Stan’s gut again. He has to tell him.

Richie is on his feet, tugging at Stan’s jacket sleeve. “You fancy a jaunt to the theatre, old chap? Tally-ho! _Allons-y!_ Let’s blow this joint.”

But Stan says, “One second,” and instead pulls Bill aside, several yards away. Voice low, he drops the bomb. “Bev’s cheating on you.”

His face pulls in confusion. “What?”

Stan looks at the ground instead of having to meet his best friend’s eyes while he says this. “Her and Ben. I can see it.”

Bill laughs. It’s so unlike what Stan expected that he looks up again, frowning. Bill is shaking his head. “N-no - that’s not w-what -” Now he’s going pink. He rubs at the back of his neck. “Um. I know. I m-mean, no, sh-she’s not. I said they could.” He shrugs. “I know sh-she loves Ben too. I said I didn’t m-m-mind.” 

Stan stares. “Oh.” What else can he say? “Well. Good.”

* * *

He can blame it on his conversation with Bill. Or maybe he can blame it on watching Mike and Eddie get all cozy and cuddled up all afternoon. Or, really, he could just blame it on Richie. That seems like the simplest option.

Wherever the blame lands, one this is for certain: Stan can’t keep his mind off one topic in particular. Not even when he and Richie finally reach the movie theater, with Richie riding on the back of Stan’s bike even though they’re way too old to do that anymore, and they retreat into the dark space. Richie wanted to see a horror movie. It’s some stupid Stephen King story about zombie pets. On most days, Stan would be content to just sit back and watch the movie, pretending he doesn’t care that Richie oh-so-sneakily interlaced their fingers over the armrest in the dark. They’ve been doing that for months, unremarked upon; it seems pointless to start making a racket about it now. Anyway, it’s the middle of the day - the theater is nearly empty, and the small scattering of other moviegoers are in the rows down below. Stan and Richie are in their traditional seats, in the far back corner. Nobody is about to stand up and point to their linked hands.

But today he can’t focus. He can’t zone out, either. Thankfully, his power doesn’t seem to apply much to the silver screen; the movie is mainly unclouded by colorful patterns, with only a thread or two popping up here or there. But his brain won’t shut up today, with or without patterns. And moreover, Richie won’t, either. In the movie theater, Richie’s power is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, nobody else is getting annoyed with them, shushing him for whispering through the whole thing. On the other hand, he can talk to Stan as much as he wants with zero consequences. 

_Aw, man, that’s grody,_ Richie “whispers,” and Stan grits his teeth and tries to ignore him. _Half his head’s gone. How do you think they did that? Rubber? Looks like rubber._

 _Beep beep. I’m trying to watch,_ Stan thinks back, and beside him, Richie gives an audible snort.

_You’re barely even paying attention. Ugh! Look at that!_

_Shut up!_

_Fuckin’ make me, Uris!_

Okay, fine.

Fine.

Stan turns in his chair, turns Richie’s face toward him with the fingertips of one hand, and kisses him. 

The first thing he registers is that it did, indeed, shut Richie up. The second thing is, it’s actually... really nice. Stan isn’t abundantly fond of touching, usually. He doesn’t _dislike_ it, exactly, it’s just, he likes his personal space. He has a bubble. He kind of expected this to be slimy or weird - it always sounds so _slimy_ in movies, it’s gross - but it’s not. In fact, Richie’s lips are dry, and a little chapped, and his face is warm against Stan’s. He tastes like the Reese’s Pieces he’s been eating and smells like the incoming storm - cold spring air and rain and Bev’s cigarette smoke.

The third thing he registers is that, hey, presto! He doesn’t have to see the patterns if his eyes are closed. In fact, he doesn’t even have to think. His head has, finally, gone quiet, locked in on the tremble of adrenaline in his veins and the clumsy but enthusiastic movement of Richie remembering to kiss back.

Stan falls back an inch, mostly because he had been holding his breath and he needs oxygen, and Richie’s hand tightens on the back of his neck - since when did it get there? 

_No - no,_ Richie is murmuring, silently, trying to pull him back, and Stan has no reason not to oblige. Richie isn’t shocked into paralysis, this time, and his glasses prod at Stan’s cheek as he tries to find a good angle. The first time was beginner’s luck, it seems - how are you supposed to do this without smashing your noses together?

Pulling away the second time is harder. Onscreen, there’s a tense scene happening, but Stan barely remembers what was happening in the movie. What now? Movies never show what happens after a kiss. Is he supposed to say _thanks_? Do they just face forward again and go on with their day and never mention it again?

Richie lets his hand slide off of Stan’s neck. _Jesus, Staniel. It took you two months worth of dates to do that?_

Stan freezes. 

“... two months of what?”


	4. Richie Sends a Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this got a little angstier (and more cartoony) than I meant it to, sorry. But they, it's a superhero story, I'm okay with it getting a little cartoony.

**Autumn, 1990**

* * *

Though nothing

Will keep us together

We could steal time

Just for one day

* * *

Richie wouldn’t say that he’s afraid of being alone, or even that he fears loneliness. It’s not the solitude that scares him, it’s what precedes it. It’s the idea, no, the conviction that he’ll be forgotten one day. Abandoned by the people he cares about. Missing or dead like those kids in the posters, like _his_ poster in Neibolt, like the silenced doll in the coffin, mouth sewn shut. Unable to cry out for help - and unsure if anyone would care if he did.

But they would care. They _would._ He tells himself that on bad days, and he traces the thumbnail of his right hand along the scar on his left palm. This thing that links him irrevocably to six other people. Like a talisman. Like a soulmark in those old stories. He isn’t alone, and he tells himself that over and over.

The nice thing about his power is, he doesn’t just have to _tell_ himself that. He can prove it. 

He’s been practicing. Annoying the other Losers, yes, but recently he’s been expanding his skillset. Seeing what he can do.

It started small. At the beginning of the semester, he noticed a girl really struggling in his calculus test and quietly sent, _Psst, hey. Number four is D. Number five is C._ He’s been practicing on his parents, a little, but that’s trickier. He doesn’t want them to think they’re hearing voices and get worried that they’re insane. But a quick little, _Don’t forget you’re out of flour,_ or, _Hey, your son loves you_ here and there can’t hurt, right? Small things like that can be brushed off. Brains do funny things. People have thoughts pop in and out of their heads all the time. Who says every single thought has to be their own?

He’s been seeing how far his range is. He can reach the Losers from all over town, no matter where they are - he has the feeling that he could reach them all over the world - but with other people, he has a limit. He’s been pushing that limit. Things as simple as _Is my shirt inside out?_ (and then the unsuspecting victim will look down at themselves, surprised, assuming that the thought came from _them_ ), or _Heeeyyy, this is the ghost of your ancestooooorr. Drink more miiilllkk, or you’ll regreeeet iiiiit!_

He wishes he could hear people’s responses to those. But the thing is, he has to work much harder to hear _responses._ It’s a little easier with the Losers. With them he can have full-on conversations. But other people... He really has to listen hard, and concentrate. Which isn’t usually something he wants to do.

Except...

This one time.

Once, a couple months ago, he accidentally wandered into the head of a girl standing on a bridge just outside of town. 

It was complete happenstance. He was just casting his net out as wide as he could, seeing how far he could stretch, and suddenly he touched on something. A little _blip_ of warmth - a human mind. Pretty far out. So, shrugging - _fuck it -_ he sent out a feeler. _Yello?_ And he listened. He concentrated, this time, and he listened. And he was, shortly, very glad that he did.

Her name was Melodie, and by the time they stopped “talking” an hour later, she was halfway home. The thing was, before Richie happened to land in her head, she wasn’t planning on going back.

That shook him up pretty good. He didn’t go venturing into anyone’s head for weeks afterwards. Except the Losers, of course.

He’s not the only one that’s been practicing. Mike, Bill, Bev and him meet up every week in a threadbare playground in the greenway behind Richie’s neighborhood. They meet at night - just a group of teenagers hanging around the park, screened by playground equipment and trees. They’ve only had the cops called on them once. Hence, why they chose a spot near Richie’s neighborhood. Bill’s parents’ house, and Bev’s aunt’s house are both solidly in neighborhoods where concerned neighbors would be calling 911 constantly because of the _suspicious teenagers outside late at night._ And Mike’s place is far away, and his grandpa would probably come storming out asking what they’re doing, scaring the animals with all that noise.

They call it _practicing,_ but it might be more accurate to call it _a showing-off fest._

Richie just wishes he could show off a little more. His power doesn’t _look_ all that impressive, on the surface. There aren’t any bells or whistles. Usually he basks in the attention, but he feels stupid just standing there _thinking_ at people. He prefers to deflect off onto the others and watch _them._

Because watching the others practice? Now, that’s a treat.

Bill’s power doesn’t look a whole lot more impressive than Richie’s. But he’s getting better at it. Training himself. He says it’s like a scent, like he’s a hound following a trail. A sixth sense. And the things he _does_ with it? Now, _that’s_ impressive.

Alongside his ongoing crusade to find every lost pet in Derry, Bill has continued his semi-secret vigilante streak in other ways. Finding other lost things. In school he’s becoming mildly famous as a sort of teen detective - Richie hasn’t stopped calling him Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy Boy for weeks, as a result - because, especially after his pet-finding crusade, students have started approaching him with other little mysteries. Missing prized possessions, stolen bikes, swiped diaries.

He’s a goddamn hero, and everyone knows it. Richie almost enjoys slinging arm arm around Bill’s shoulder in the school hallway, smirking at the girls who giggle and eye Bill from behind their binders. _Sorry, ladies, he’s ours._

Well. Bev’s. If you’re keeping score strictly by _who’s-dating-who,_ he’s Bev’s, technically. But who’s counting?

And speaking of Bev - holy hot momma. Jesus Christ on a crutch. DAMN.

Since Bev’s power doesn’t require a whole lot of finessing, she has elected to train in other skills. Knife tricks, for example. She can’t cut herself, so slip-ups are no big deal. She can flip a small switchblade over her knuckles, one way and then the other, spin it between two fingers, toss it in the air and catch it by the handle without breaking a sweat.

Richie is far more turned on by her “practice demonstrations” at the playground than he would ever like to admit. And he admits quite a lot.

He would never. Scratch that - he _would,_ in a _second._ But she’s dating Bill and Ben. (And _that’s_... a thing, by the way.) And he’s dating Stan. And anyway, he and Bev are best friends. They’re smoke buddies. He even let her put eyeliner on him once - that’s how tight they are. They are peas in a pod. Moon and stars. Converse and high socks. Peanut butter and banana. They just go together. And while, in another world, in another life, he would love to bite that cherry-glossed plump lower lip of hers - and maybe have her tilt his chin up with the tip of that switchblade - he doesn’t need to. Hell, he shouldn’t even want to! They’re best friends, and they’re both dating other people.

Oh, who is he kidding. He pictures her just as often as he pictures Stan or...

Well. Richie’s mind is not exactly squeaky clean. It’s a damn good thing his friends can only _reply_ to him telepathically, and not actually _read_ his mind, because he doesn’t think there’s a single one of them he doesn’t have the hots for, to one degree or another.

What? He’s a teenager, and they’re hot. And funny, and kind, and talented, and fuck off.

He’s also a big fan of her jumps.

She’s been slowly testing out her limits - for example, how far can she fall? The latest answer is, _at least two stories._ She’ll climb to a roof, take a running start, leap off the edge, and stick the landing.

Richie loves those. He can usually get her to do it again by chanting, “Superhero landing! Superhero landing!” And then, smiling and rolling her eyes, she’ll climb back up and do a repeat performance, landing heavily on purpose, down on one knee with the opposite fist braced on the ground. And Richie will clap and cheer, “Yaaaaaaaay!” and she’ll get up and mess up his hair, or kiss him on the cheek.

Bev, for her part, is quickly becoming revered and beloved by the middle school girls of Derry. Her contemporaries still regard her with disdain - Greta and her gang, especially - but maybe because of people like them, Bev has developed a habit of standing up for younger kids. She told Richie once that she remembers what it’s like to be ten, or twelve, or thirteen, and to be treated like garbage by people that don’t even know you. So she sticks her nose directly into trouble and stands in the path of would-be tormentors. What does she care if they throw rocks or punches? The only thing left to hurt is her pride, and she claims that’s invincible, too.

Richie knows she’s lying about that last part. He doesn’t need Ben to confirm that.

 _Middle school is hard,_ she said once. _And a lot of those kids deserve so much better._

 _Kids? We’re sophomores,_ he laughed. _That was us two years ago, old lady._

_Do you still feel like the kid you were in eighth grade? After everything?_

He couldn’t argue against that.

Mike took a little longer than the others to join their little group, but he comes to the “meetings” regularly now, and holy shit is it goosebump-inducing to watch him at work. He’s graduated from making water flow uphill - which was cool enough on its own - to creating a small working water cycle right in the playground, with a puddle standing in as the ocean and the slide acting as mountains. And, oh yeah, he can make a waterball the way most people pack a snowball. Except when he says, _Think fast,_ and throws it at you, you go to catch it and end up with a faceful of freezing cold, dirty water.

It’s _awesome._

Stan and Eddie don’t come to the meetings. Stan still dislikes all of this, distrusts the powers - although he’s getting a better handle on his own. At least, he’s able to control it more now, only seeing the patterns when he wants to. When he’s especially stressed or overwhelmed, they start creeping into the edges of his vision again. But for the most part, he can isolate them now. 

Eddie is the same. After the incident at the quarry this past spring, Eddie stopped healing people as much. He’s trying to abstain from his powers - he says any power from the clown is a power he wants nothing to do with. But every now and again he can’t help himself - especially when it’s big stuff. Richie knows for sure that Eddie healed a kid’s broken arm the other day after they were clipped by a car. Eddie swears up and down that he didn’t, that the kid’s arm was never broken - but Richie heard the crack.

* * *

It’s October, and Derry is aflame with orange, yellow, and red. Gutters are thick with clusters of dry leaves, and sidewalks are spotted with them. Businesses hang paper bats and jack-o-lanterns in their windows. On cloudy days the air is cold and wet with mist and rain, turning the streets silver with moisture, and on sunny days it gets balmy again, the air fresh and spicy with the smell of autumn.

Richie and Stan sit in the booth of one of the few restaurants in town that serves kosher food. He never realized how rare they were, comparatively, until he and Stan started going out, and they found themselves rotating between the same three or four restaurants on a bi-weekly basis.

They’re alone today. It’s a date, and... well, the others don’t really know about those. Stan’s got some hangups about coming out. Hell, Richie has some too - enough that the Fucker of Worlds once used it against him. He’s not scared, he’s just plenty content to stay in the closet for now. He likes his closet. It’s got Hawaiian shirts and a Stan in it. Why leave?

Not like Eddie or Mike would judge him. Or would they? God, maybe. Richie has spent so long deflecting, pulling distractions out of his pockets like Penn and Teller - _Look over here, I’m juggling boob jokes! Pay no attention to the gay that just happened over here, nobody saw that. Look, hot lady! -_ they might resent him for the truth if they ever found out. Best friends aren’t supposed to lie to each other. They’re not supposed to hide things from each other. He wouldn’t blame them for being mad if they found out just how long he’s been lying to them.

And as for Bill and Ben... they’re not... 

Are they? He knows Bill is dating Bev, who’s also dating Ben, but Bill and Ben? Maybe? It’s hard to get a straight answer out of them - no pun intended. Whenever Richie asks, he gets either a glare or a blush, and lots of muttering. That could mean almost anything. It’s hard to imagine Bill - perfect, aggravating Bill, with his broad back and the saunter he’s started to develop as a school-famous hero - being queer. He just can’t imagine it. Bill, with his baseball caps and his cockier-than-ever smile, queer? Aren’t people like Richie supposed to look, well, like Richie? Awkward and gangly, with a funny-shaped face? Then again, Stan isn’t exactly straight as an arrow, and he’s a handsome lad. 

“Hey,” Stan says, getting Richie’s attention. “You haven’t said anything dumb in a while. You alive?” 

Richie swallows his bite and says, “Do you think Bill is straight?” 

Stan’s head whips around, scanning the deli. Then he hisses, “Shut _up -_ ”

“Nobody’s paying attention.”

Stan presses his lips together and takes another bite of his own sandwich, flicking the side of his head - their signal for _think to me._

So Richie says again, _You think Bill is straight?_

 _Bev,_ is all that Stan sends back. _Duh._

 _You can like girls and still like guys,_ Richie mutters. He’s nibbling around the edges of his sandwich, eating the lettuce and cheese that sticks out the sides.

Stan shrugs.

 _You think Bill and Ben?_ Richie tries again. _They seem awfully chummy._

_We’re all chummy, dumbass._

_Okay, but do you think?_

Stan goes quiet, looking out the window at the rainy, leaf-spotted streets of downtown Derry, and Richie narrows his eyes.

 _Wait. You know, don’t you?_ There’s a crow cawing somewhere outside and Stan very pointedly looks for it, still avoiding his eyes. “You do know!”

Stan sighs, finally giving in, and puts down his food to rub at his eyes. It’s as good as a confession.

“Oh my god,” Richie hisses, leaning across the table. “Wait, so, all three of them?”

“I guess,” Stan mutters. Under the table, his shoe taps Richie’s ankle - maybe a signal to lay off or maybe just an absentminded touch.

“Damn, I wish I could get in on that.” Richie’s face crinkles up in regret as soon as he says it. That’s not really something you’re supposed to say to your boyfriend. Damn his big mouth.

But Stan is looking at something that Richie can’t see, looking thoughtful, toying with something invisible on his ring finger.

_Me too._

Richie chokes a little. Coughing, recovering from the surprise, he sends, _You think if we asked they’d let us join?_

This time Stan kicks him. But it’s a gentle kick.

* * *

_It’s the most wonderful time of year!_

_With the kids trick-or-treating_

_And everyone eating the candy so dear!_

_It's the most wonderful time of the year!_

“Beep beep, Richie,” say at least two voices at once.

“What? You don’t like my song?”

Bev shakes her head with a smile and continues applying stage makeup to Richie’s cheek. They’re at her aunt’s house, in Beverly’s room with its attached bathroom - she’s absolutely spoiled - and outside, the light is just beginning to fade.

Once they decided on a theme, Bev designed most of their costumes. She has a real knack for clothes. She’s cute as a button in a light blue checkered dress over a white blouse, with her hair in two short French braids, a basket on one arm and bright red heels. She had to add the red glitter herself.

Bill already sat with his face screwed up despite Bev’s exasperated orders to “Stop making faces or I can’t do it!” His turn is done. The sheen of metallic pigment over his face completes his “tin” outfit - which is actually mainly gray-and-silver toned pieces of clothing, enhanced with a hatchet and a conical silver hat which he won’t wear. Ben seems quite fond of his mane, and Stan is, frankly, more dashing than he has any right to be as a scarecrow. Mike is wearing a green coat and carrying a cane, and Eddie has on a fake fur coat and has a dog nose drawn onto his face with Bev’s makeup. Richie, meanwhile, is having his face painted green. He elected to be the Wicked Witch, er, Wizard of the West.

Ben is softly humming _it’s the most wonderful time of the year._

At first, they wondered if they were too old to go trick-or-treating. Then they all looked at each other and decided, _free candy._

Anyway, the clown is long gone. What’s the worst that could happen?

* * *

Richie sticks his head under the cold spray of the shower, sitting on the edge of his bathtub, letting the stinging jet of water blast away the green paint and the red-brown crackles of half-dried blood.

He thinks he’s still crying, stupidly, like a baby, but the water flushes away the evidence. Stan is trying to help him, hovering with a washcloth, but mostly just making Richie’s nosebleed worse, and he’s nursing injuries of his own -

* * *

At first they thought it was because of the costumes.

And that was bad enough. They just wanted to have fun, damnit. It was harmless goddamn fun. Some teenagers go egging houses or graffitiing or breaking into abandoned houses on Halloween. They just wanted to get some free candy and then go home and watch some dumb horror movie together and go to sleep in a dog pile. It wasn’t fair that Tom and his gang had to ruin it, make it feel bad and embarrassing. It wasn’t fair.

But it was worse than that. He didn’t chase them down an empty street in his car because of their Wizard of Oz garb. He wasn’t yelling mocking insults out the drivers’ window - _Surrender Dorothy!_ or _Nice kids’ costumes, fucking losers!_

Nope. Instead, when he had them cornered in a dead-end alley, he got out of the car, dead-serious, snarling, “Fucking freaks. What’d you do to me? Huh? How do you do it?”

The Losers all looked at each other, wondering which one of them had fucked up most recently. Was it Richie, all the way back in the Spring, yelling in Tom’s head? Was it Bev, always rock-proof and punch-proof and everything-proof? Or Mike, who once doused Tom with water from a broken sewer pipe to get him to leave Bill alone?

Before they could come up with an answer, the passenger and back doors of Tom’s car opened. And all at once, they didn’t outnumber him quite so much.

* * *

They wipe off the remainder of their face paint together at the bathroom sink. Stan’s scarecrow gloves and boots with the straw glued to them are on the floor already, along with Richie’s black wizard hat. His broom leans against a wall - somehow he managed to hold onto it through everything. In fact, he vaguely remembers trying to swing it like a baseball bat in the midst of everything.

Their clothes are wet, grimy, clinging to their skin like clammy hands, and Stan jerks his bottle-green overshirt off, scattering the decorative straw, dumping it on the floor. He doesn’t even take the time to fold it; that’s how rattled he is. 

“Come on,” he’s saying, unexpectedly gentle. “Come on, Rich. Let’s get you out of these. Come on.”

Wincing as his own sprained wrist is bent, Stan peels off Richie’s black cape, then his black sweater. Stan is left in an undershirt, now, and Richie in a navy tank top he borrowed from Mike to go under the sweater.

“You know,” Richie sniffs, “When I imagined you undressing me, this is not what I pictured.”

Stan doesn’t even beep him. He just gathers up their costumes - the stupid fucking _kid’s_ costumes, god they were so _stupid_ \- and drops them in a heap in the already-full laundry basket.

Watery paint, mostly green, runs slowly down the lip of the sink and towards the drain from the washcloth Richie was using to scrub his skin. 

* * *

Blinded by the blazing headlights of Tom’s car and cornered in the dead-end alley, the Losers defended themselves. You’d think it would be easy - after all, they killed an actual demon. Bullies should be peanuts. But the thing about bullies, you can’t actually bash their skull open with a baseball bat, or suddenly people start tossing words around like _arrest_ and _life sentence_ and _second degree murder._

But somehow, Richie still expected it to be easy. He expected them to have the upper hand. They’re _superheroes,_ for shit’s sake! 

Except they’re not. There was barely a drop of water around for Mike to use - it’s been a dry, crisp, orange October. Except for the slimy ditch they already splashed through in an attempt to avoid the car (Richie fell in it), the town was bone-dry. Bev didn’t even have a knife with her. Why _would_ she have taken it with her? They were trick-or-treating, not heading to a ritual sacrifice. And what else could they do? None of them ended up with super strength or speed. None of them can breathe fire or shoot lasers out of their eyes. They’re not X-Men. They’re not heroes. They’re just kids.

And seven sophomores against five seniors is not as fair a fight as you might think. Not to mention, Eddie got tossed into an empty dumpster pretty early on in the fight, and Ben went to help him climb out, so neither of them were much help in warding off Tom’s furious interrogation -

“How’d you do it? Huh? Are you devil worshippers, what? Answer me, freaks! I’ll tell everyone what you did!”

But Richie could do one thing - the only thing he’s good at. He started talking. But, for once, not with his mouth.

He barely remembers what he said, at this point. He just remembers that it worked last time, so he figured he’d give it another go, broadcasting to Tom’s whole crew, as loud as he could. Shit like _I know what you did,_ and _you’re just like your father,_ and _that slasher movie that freaked you out? It’s actually real,_ and _that pimple is disgusting, do you not wash your face?_

He bombarded them with it, with all the worst things he could think to tell a person. It felt awful. He doesn’t _like_ saying things like that, telling people things like that. He likes to make people laugh. This... He didn’t like how this felt. How it left him feeling gross inside. How does Tom do it all day?

Unfortunately, what worked once didn’t work a second time. Tom bared his teeth, like a wolf, and advanced.

“Yeah,” he said darkly. “That. I wanna know how you do it.” He shoved a boot against Richie’s shoulder, rolling him over to face the sky from where he had been curled up on his side. His stomach ached from being socked in the gut. The rest of the Losers were a few yards down the alley, occupied with Tom’s friends.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Tom said, looking down at him. “It was you last time.”

_Eat shit, cumbreath._

Tom lifted his boot again, and his foot twitched down, directly towards Richie’s nose, and he flinched -

Eddie gave a war cry, and in the split-second later there was a resounding metallic _bang_ as he beaned Tom over the head with the lid of a trash can. Apparently he made it out of the dumpster.

Tom stumbled, cursing, looking ready to commit murder.

And then, like a saving grace from above, a _deus ex machina,_ like the sound track of a cheesy slasher movie, there was a hair-raising scream.

For a moment, everyone looked at each other. Tom’s friends, the Losers. It hadn’t been any of them. It was too far away.

Then it happened again.

“Fucking shit, Tom,” the right-hand man spat, grabbing at his arm and jerking him towards the car, “What the hell was that?”

“Sounded like a goddamn banshee -”

“Just get in the car. Just get in the car, forget it.”

“Wait for me. Tom, wait for me, Jesus!”

His car screeched backwards, unblocking the mouth of the alley, and just like that they were gone. 

The Losers, meanwhile, struggled to their feet, took one look at each other, and then scrambled to keep up with Bev as she charged off in the direction of the screams, her sparkly red heels flashing with each step.

* * *

They make it as far as changing into some of Richie’s sweatpants - which are dry, and fuzzy, and warm, and feel immensely better than their clammy costumes - before the pendulum swings and Stan starts to lose it.

He was fine up until now, handing Richie tissues for his nosebleed and prodding them both into action to clean their scrapes and change into dry clothes. They had to sneak across the hall from the upstairs bathroom into Richie’s room; his parents are downstairs, watching TV, and it was hard enough getting past them without letting them know anything was wrong. Thankfully, the costumes and face paint camouflaged most evidence of what happened tonight, and they were able to run past the living room yelling, “Hi, bye, happy Halloween!”

Now, as they pull on old tee shirts, Stan is starting to slip. He’s been fighting it this whole time - Richie can tell, he could see how Stan was focusing so intently on what he was doing, trying to block out the patterns that pushed at the edges of his vision. But now that his task is complete, his concentration is faltering, and he sits heavily on the foot of Richie’s bed, breathing hard.

* * *

It was a girl, and according to Bev, who got there first, she was in the middle of being robbed at knifepoint when the Losers got there. She had screamed for help.

Fortunately for her, Bev jumped directly between the victim and the robber. Unfortunately for the Losers, the would-be victim had a front-row view of the knife skidding right off Bev’s arm like she was made of marble. Because by the time the rest of them got there, in time to see the robber cursing and stumbling off in his dumb ski mask, the girl had already made up her mind that Bev was some sort of monster.

What is it about Halloween that makes people revert back to nineteenth century superstitions? It also could have been the fact that the girl was, clearly, pretty drunk. She was dressed as Jessica Rabbit, having obviously just left a party when the robber closed in on the vulnerable victim. But, drunk, jittery, and narrowly escaping a knifepoint robbery is a bad combination for anyone. The girl went into full-blown Salem witch hunt mode. Lots of “Stay away from me!” and “Get back!” while she waved her purse around, drunkenly, like a nunchuck.

They could have backed off and went about their way, except that some concerned citizen had heard the screaming and decided to call the police. Which meant that they were witnesses to the attempted armed robbery. Which also meant that they got to stand there, awkwardly, wet and dirty and bruised in their Halloween costumes, while the drunk college girl pointed at them and repeated, “They’re like demons or something, they’re -”

“Miss,” the haggard policeman tried.

“They’re - they’re - they’re fuckin’ inhuman, I saw the knife bounced right off,” she slurred, and the policeman pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Miss, have you ingested any substances other than alcohol tonight?”

They gave statements (slightly abridged - nobody said anything about Bev jumping in front of the knife), and at last were free to go.

* * *

“Am I crazy?”

Stan is hyperventilating. Richie is mainly failing at helping him. It doesn’t help that they keep shushing each other - if Richie’s parents hear a commotion they’ll come upstairs, and that is _not_ a conversation Richie wants any part of.

“Am I crazy? Am I crazy?”

“Fuck, I dunno! Probably!” Richie gestures helplessly. “Fuck, Stan, I’m probably crazy too! I hear voices in my head, dude. You think that’s normal?”

He sits on the bed beside his boyfriend, exhausted and aching and wondering how this night went so wrong all at once. Wondering if he’s ever gonna get his friends back.

What happened shook them all up. Bad. It was like that time after Neibolt, all of them shouting in the street, nearly coming to blows. Because if the Derry cops had taken that lady even a _little_ bit seriously, and decided to do some digging...

Not to mention if Tom decides to make good on his threat to tell everyone what they did and what they can do...

The resulting argument was messy, explosive, and overlapping. Multiple people talking at once, emotions boiling over.

_“If we keep being stupid like that, people are gonna start noticing!”_

_“We’re gonna get snapped up by the government or something. Haven’t you ever seen TV?”_

_“That could’ve been so, so bad -”_

_“Is e-everyone okay?”_

_“Shit, we’ve been training in the_ park _! Out in the open!”_

_“‘I’ll tell everyone what you did, I’ll tell everyone what you are -’ guys, that is not good - what if he -”_

_“Did you see her? She was terrified of us! Were were just trying to help, what the fuck -”_

_“Sh-sh-she was just scared -”_

_“Yeah, of us!”_

_“Fuck, are we the bad guy now? Are we fucking It now?”_

_“See, this is what I’ve been saying! None of you listened to me! If you had just listened to me and left it alone, none of this would have -”_

_“Oh, so it’s our faults for defending ourselves?”_

_“He would have have come after us if we hadn’t been parading it around!”_

_“Fuck you, Uris, like this is all our fault -”_

_“Lay off him!”_

It was bad.

And in the end, after the shouting wound down and the feelings had been hurt and words had been spoken that couldn’t be un-spoken, for the first time in years, the Losers disbanded. They split off into their constituent groups: 

Eddie and Mike, walking quickly, the Approved Heterosexual Distance Apart just in case anyone happened to notice. Tonight was not a night they wanted that kind of attention on them.

B-Cubed, turning towards Bev’s aunt’s house, probably to all curl up on Bev’s queen bed (that girl really is spoiled) and cry-hump in a threesome.

And, lastly, Richie and Stan, who beat their retreat to Richie’s house and hurried past his parents. And now, here they are. Making out on Richie’s bed, with his door closed an a movie playing on the tiny, shitty TV Richie is allowed to have in his room. Because Stan has said before that kissing helps his patterns, sometimes - it grounds him - and because, after tonight, it’s a port in the storm. They’re okay. Bruised, and shaken, and deeply cut by that awful argument, but okay. Nothing else is okay, but they are. 

They still have each other. Just like always. Before the Losers Club ever formed, Stan and Richie were stuck with each other, best friends for life. As a kid, Stan was the only person Richie had met that could not only keep up with his hyperactive brain and random, unfiltered humor, but could outpace him. He’s also one of the few people who actually stuck with Richie, as a kid, and gave him a chance instead of writing him off as rude or annoying. Before Ben moved to town or Bill invited Bev to the quarry, Stan and Richie were long since thick as thieves. 

And now, when it looks like their little club may have disbanded for good, here they are again. Still. 

Maybe that’s why they go the extra step today. Making out is pretty second-nature by now, but despite all his bragging, Richie has never ventured much further than that. But tonight was the shittiest night to end all shitty nights, and he wants comfort. He keeps pulling them closer, just wanting to feel the solid warmth of his boyfriend’s body, wanting that bone-deep reassurance that he’s not alone. And eventually Stan makes an annoyed sound in his throat, and Riche expects to be pushed away, but instead Stan pivots suddenly and swings a knee over Richie’s legs. Settling on his lap while Richie leans back against the headboard.

“There,” Stan says, a little pink at the cheeks. “Acceptable?”

Richie nods, warm all over, and manages to whisper, “Hot,” before Stan shuts him up with a kiss. 

Here’s the problem: he’s wearing sweatpants. They’re both wearing sweatpants. Which makes the situation inside said sweatpants significantly more difficult to conceal. He can tell his face is slowly turning candy-apple-red, and he’s just hoping and praying Stan doesn’t knee him in the balls for this, when Stan shifts his weight. And goes still.

Shit.

 _Oh, don’t mind that,_ he tries to toss off lightly, without disconnecting from their kiss. _Not to worry, he’s quite tame. Won’t bite at all._

 _Why,_ Stan thinks back, _did you have to put that picture in my brain._

And then, without even giving Richie time to respond, he grinds his hips down and Richie’s head falls back so abruptly that he knocks his skull on the headboard.

Forget every bitter thought he had about B-Cubed earlier. Cry-humping is actually fantastic.


	5. Mike Waters his Plants

**Winter, 1991**

* * *

I, I wish I could swim

Like dolphins, like dolphins could swim

* * *

Mike shouldn’t fear fire. Not anymore. Surely it’s been long enough that the nightmares should have stopped by now.

In his dreams, it’s always the same room. No matter how old he is, it’s always his childhood room, in the long-ago burned-out house, with the same quilt on the bed and the same books on the shelves. It doesn’t matter that he’s sixteen now, in his third year of high school, and that as long as there’s water around, he won’t ever have to fear fire again. In his sleep, the room is the same, and the screams are the same, and the pounding on the door is the same. The smoke in his lungs is the same. Thick, stinging, hot as the flames themselves.

He’s gasping in real life, too - in some muted, distant corner of himself, he’s aware of that - but he can’t wake up. He has to play out this scene to the end; that’s how it goes.

Except, this time, it doesn’t.

“Hey.” There’s a hand on his shoulder and his head jerks up. He’s still in his dream; the house is still burning. But a lanky figure with dark hair and huge glasses is squatting next to him, wearing pajamas. “C’mon, Mikey. Up and at ‘em.”

“They’re dying,” he croaks out, tears wetting his soot-dry face and evaporating just as quickly - just like in real life, just like when he was a kid - and Richie shakes his head.

“They’re not. It’s not real. C’mon, stand up. We can go out the window.”

They jump out the window, one after the other. In real life, that would have broken their legs, or at least their ankles. Here, they just tumble to the ground and get up, not even winded, and when Mike looks back, the flames are gone. The house is quiet and charred, empty, cold. 

He turns to say something to Richie, but when he opens his mouth he realizes he’s looking at the wall of his bedroom in the gray pre-dawn light. He’s awake, still sweating a little even though the room is chilled. Frost blurs the windowpanes in fans and fractals.

That was Richie. Not just a dream of Richie, but _Richie,_ stepping into Mike’s mind to wake him.

Technically they’re not supposed to be using their powers. But then, Mike doesn’t think a single one of them has quit cold-turkey. Mike, for his part, pulled an unfortunate ice-skater from the icy depths of the frozen-over quarry when they misjudged the thickness of the ice. Mike’s cuts and bruises from farmwork never last long around Eddie. Bev continues to stand up for unfairly targeted students - though in ways less brazen, less obviously unnatural. At least, theoretically. She and Bill were the strongest proponents for using their powers, back when the big fight on Halloween happened. Mike isn’t sure she’s been as careful as she claims when they talk. And Bill, well, of course no one could dissuade Bill from his path. In the past year, he’s graduated from high school detective work and missing kittens to combing the newspaper for “Missing - reward!” articles about lost wedding rings, stolen cars, missing wallets, misplaced heirlooms. And he’s started to build up a good little pile of savings for his efforts.

How does Mike know this? Because he’s been making a concentrated effort to keep in touch with everyone over the past year. If he doesn’t see one of his friends for a week, he calls them. He tries to get the group together as often as he can. 

It’s not that they never see each other anymore, because they do. They even gather in a full group, now and again. But it’s not the default. Not like it used to be. Last year, they would just end up all together by apparent happenstance. It was the norm. Effortless. Now... not so much. More often, they end up in pairs, or small groups. And even then it’s not the same as before.

Mike wraps his quilt around himself as he rolls out of bed, bare feet touching down on the icy wood floor. He pokes his head out of his room. It must be _very_ early - maybe even the middle of the night, still, if his grandfather isn’t up yet. But he knows he won’t get any more good sleep tonight, so he pads silently to the kitchen with his quilt-cape. He passes a row of houseplants, propped up in a west-facing window, and absently trails water over them as he passes. He doesn’t need a source anymore, if there’s enough moisture in the air. He just scatters it from his hands into the pots like he’s scattering fertilizer. 

He makes himself coffee and heats up milk for oatmeal, though the sun is hours from rising.

He gets twenty minutes of peace, in the warmly lit kitchen in the gray-blue pre-dawn, before a shout in his head makes him jump.

_Wake up, hot stuff, we’ve got a bit of a situation!_

* * *

Here’s the long and short of it:

Bill, the well-meaning ambitious moron, got in over his head. He decided that finding missing _things_ wasn’t enough. No, he was going to go looking for a missing person.

Bev, knowing full well that it was a bad idea, decided the best solution was to accompany him as a sort of bodyguard.

Ben went with them for emotional support.

The thing is, missing person cases are a little more complicated than a wedding ring in a sink drain or a stolen bike in someone else’s backyard. Most wedding rings don’t have a particular opinion on being found or not. People, though, people are messy. Some lost people surely want to be found. And then, as they discovered tonight, some lost people were hiding out in a greenhouse where they were illegally growing marjuana, and when discovered by three very surprised and somewhat amused teenagers, panic and hold said teenagers hostage in a garden shed.

Mike knows this because Richie knows this, because Richie got bored early in the morning after ousting Mike from his nightmare and decided to see who else was awake. And after wandering into the head of Ben, he got his answer.

So Richie sent out the mayday to Mike, Stan, and Eddie, and now they’re all piled into the cramped front of Mike’s grandfather’s truck, shivering in the pre-dawn chill and talking a mile a minute.

Thank god for Stan’s patterns, or it would have been near-impossible to find them. Bill’s telepathic directions to Richie were abundantly unclear. They didn’t exactly start out by plotting their path on a map; they were just following Bill’s intuition. _It’s kind of west. West and then south. No, north. Bev says north. Left? We turned left, it was after a cistern._ If it weren’t for Stan, and the three out of seven red strings he can see tied to his ring finger, trailing off west somewhere, this would have been impossible. 

The illegal weed greenhouse is, according to Richie relaying information from Bev, inside an empty warehouse somewhere between Derry and the next town over, at the edge of someone’s property. Bill, Bev, and Ben apparently rode there on bikes.

Because they’re idiots.

Now, as Stan says, “I think we’re getting closer,” Eddie starts digging around in his bag and pulling out bandannas.

“Masks on,” he instructs.

That was his condition for coming with them. They have to take precautions and hide their identities, as best they can. After all, wasn’t that half the reason that Halloween went wrong last year? Because Tom and that drunk girl and god-knows-who-else saw them using their powers? So, when picking up Eddie (read: convincing him to climb out of his window without waking his mother), they made an agreement: like any hero worth his salt, they’ll be wearing disguises. 

In this case, their disguises consist of bandannas tied around the lower halves of their faces, and jacket hoods pulled up to hide their hair. It was the best they could do on short notice. 

* * *

As promised, the greenhouse is inside an empty warehouse somewhere in the ice-grit-swept woods between Derry and the slightly larger town to the west. It looks like it used to be part of a farm, years ago, perhaps storing grain or feed or hay or maybe even animals, before the adjoining fields became overgrown and the owners moved away. Whatever the case, it is now home to a makeshift plastic greenhouse, lit from inside, held together with duct tape and PVC pipes.

The gardener himself isn’t hard to find. They just have to follow the smell; apparently impulse-trapping three teenagers in a garden shed and not knowing what to do with them is stressful, and he decided to take the edge off with a joint. Or two, by the looks of his eyes. He’s standing a few yards behind the warehouse, pacing back and forth in the semi-dark, trailing smoke.

He chokes when he sees them, coughing. “Shit, dude,” he manages, stumbling backwards, and all at once Mike remembers the bandannas. Maybe the disguises make them look more intimidating than they really are. Although, his own bandanna is sunny yellow, so somehow that seems doubtful. “Where do you keep coming from? Are you with the police? Hey, hey, stay back - I have a...” He looks around, searching for a weapon, and snatches up a roll of duct tape. “I have a... tape!”

The guys is twenty-something, light haired, and he looks... well, he looks like he’s been camping out in a tent in an abandoned warehouse for the whole winter, growing weed in a hand-built greenhouse.

“Where’d you put them, dickwad?” Eddie snaps, shining his flashlight in the guy’s face.

“Shit, damnit, put the light down!” He bats at the brightness and then squints at them, perhaps not quite as panicked by the situation as a sober person might be. “Put what? Who are you people? What are you doing here? This is private property, you know.”

“Over there,” Stan says. The four of them glance at each other and nod, and Stan and Richie head off around the corner of the warehouse, presumably towards the garden shed, flashlights swinging.

“What’s your name?” Mike says.

“Not telling you. This is private property, you’re trespassing on my -”

“Bill said his name was Tony!” Richie yells over his shoulder.

“No,” Tony says, unconvincingly. “No, no it’s -”

“Anyone else here, Tony?”

“Day is it?”

Mike and Eddie look at each other. “Uh,” says Eddie. “The fifteenth?”

“No, the other kind.”

“Thursday,” says Mike.

“Yeah, no, Derryl only comes by on Sundays. Hey, your friends can’t go back there -”

As Tony begins to follow Richie and Stan, Mike spots a water pump in the distance.

He makes pretty quick work of the entrepreneuring gardener. Before Tony can make it five steps, a rope of water coils around him and freezes solid, locking him in place.

“Motherfucker, wow,” is Tony’s comment. “That’s some Aquaman shit, I’m high as hell -”

When they join Stan and Richie at the garden shed, Mike’s heart leaps to hear three voices on the other side of the door.

“It is you guys!”

“Oh, my god, you guys, we were so worried about you -”

“Get us out of here, it smells like shit -”

“I need to pee so bad.”

“Where’s the key?”

“Stand back,” Richie says, “Stand back, I’m gonna break it open.”

“Uh -” says Mike, but Richie is already swinging a heavy rock at the lock - which bounces right off with a metallic _ching!_ and strikes his own foot when he drops it. Shaking his hand, cursing, he hops out of the way on one foot.

“What did you do?” Bev’s voice calls from inside.

“Ow, ow, ow -”

Eddie is drifting around after him, shaking his head - “Come here. Stop moving, I’m gonna fix it, just - stop _moving!_ Did you cut your hand open? How the hell did you cut your hand on a _rock?_ They’re like the bluntest things you could possibly -”

“Just kick the door down,” Bill is saying, muffled, and then Ben’s voice says, “That was a really bad idea last time, remember -?”

The lock gives a sharp _crack_ and falls apart. The door swings open. 

“Ha!” Richie cries, pointing with his non-injured hand as Eddie holds the other between both of his own palms, concentrating. “See, it worked!”

“Pretty sure that was Mike,” Stan says.

Stan had been watching when Mike filled the lock with water and froze it, the ice expanding until it cracked the old, rusty lock like it was made of ceramic. 

“Freedom!” Ben cries, running from the musty interior directly into Mike, and Bev and Ben tumble after him. 

Bev hugs anyone she can reach, hurriedly, and then yells, “I love you guys! I’m gonna go pee! Oh, _shit,_ it’s cold!” and dashes off towards the woods.

The rest of them collapse into a messy swarm of limbs, hugging and laughing and ruffling hair, voices overlapping in exasperation and affection -

“Can’t believe you found us so quick -”

“- so stupid, Bill, what if it had been the mob or something -?”

“What do you mean _quick?_ We were in there for hours -”

“I totally loosened the lock for you, though -”

“- with the bandannas? You look like cowboys.”

“- so glad to see you guys -”

“They’re disguises, duh.”

“- ever do that again, you’re gonna get yourselves killed -”

“Just don’t take the good stuff,” Tony calls from around the corner, sounding miserable. “Shit’s expensive!”

* * *

Before they leave, they lock Tony in his garden shed.

He won’t be in there for long. When they get into town, they’re going to make an anonymous call to tip off police. He’ll only be there for as long as it takes them to arrive. 

Honestly, now that they’ve escaped, they find the whole thing kind of hilarious - they almost didn’t plan to turn him in at all, except that Bill reminded them that the guy had friends or family out there who were concerned enough about him to put out an ad in the paper.

Sitting in the truck bed on the way home, alongside Bill and Ben’s bikes, they’re all laughing and cuddling, relieved that everyone else is all right. Stan is driving; Eddie is in the passenger seat, but he keeps sticking his head through the back window to talk to the others. Everyone else is in the bed of the truck. Punch-drunk on their daring and heroic escape (and maybe on a bit of a secondhand high from Tony’s fumes), they start reenacting and retelling various parts of the adventure from various points of view. Bev makes everyone cackle with laughter when she reenacts the guy’s face when he saw three teenagers waltz into his super-secret weed lair, calling, “Is Tony Collins here? Tony?”

It feels like a turning point. Like a reunion - even though they’ve been all together several times over the past year. Because _this_ feels like it used to. Like they’re a team again. Whole again.

“I just have one question.” With everyone’s attention, Richie digs several leaves out of his pocket. “How do we use these?” 

The truckbed explodes into guffaws. 

Mike is saying, “Holy shit, Richie, throw those out,” and Stan is saying, “Burn them?” and Eddie is saying, “I don’t think you can use a _leaf,_ I mean it has to be processed somehow,” and Ben is trying to grab for them, maybe to throw them off the back of the truck, and Bev is laughing so hard her body has lost all muscular integrity, and she’s jelly on the floor of the truckbed, holding her sides.

Once they’ve made their anonymous call from a payphone, they go to eat breakfast at one of Stan’s favorite restaurants, standing outside until the second it opens at 6:00am. In a corner booth, they drink coffee and pilfer bites off each other’s plates, Bev’s head on Mike’s shoulder as she nearly nods off.

“Those were a good idea,” she mumbles, startling him - he thought she had fallen asleep. She reaches up and tugs on the bandanna, which now hangs around his neck instead of hiding his face. Now they really do look like cowboys. “The disguises.”

“They were Eddie’s idea. You two -” He pokes her, and gestures to Bill with a fork - “Should do something like that, if you’re gonna keep taking dumb risks. It might not be a stoner next time, Marshmallow.”

“Hmm.” She turns her face into his shoulder, ready to take a 6:00am nap in the diner. “Yeah. Maybe.”

* * *

After the garden shed incident, the Losers fall back together like puzzle pieces. Maybe saving the three Bs proved, once and for all, that the powers were useful - or maybe they were all just tired of being apart. 

Either way, Mike isn’t complaining.

The one downside, though, is that being together as a group more often makes it harder and harder to ignore the pull. 

Mike has always felt a pull to all the others, not just Eddie - and Mike has had a feeling that Eddie feels it too, based on some of the things he’s said and the way he acts. Neither of them have brought it up. But this week... this week, Mike has been thinking about it a lot.

Particularly in regards to Stan and Richie. They’re not quite as subtle as they think they are, and now that everyone is hanging out more often, it’s almost impossible to miss.

Mike used to think that Eddie had a childhood crush on Richie. Now he knows he’s wrong: Eddie _still_ has a crush on Richie, and not only that, but Bill too. And Stan. And maybe it should be strange, or it should make Mike mad - Eddie is _his_ boyfriend, they’ve been dating since before Freshman year - but, curiously, he’s not. Maybe just because he understands. The Losers are his family. He loves them. They love him. He knows this. He knows the specific way that Bill frowns over a project, or how Bev chews on pen caps while she thinks; he knows Stan’s favorite ice cream flavor (coffee), and Richie’s least-favorite kind of pickle (sweet), and that Eddie has a stockpile of books hidden away in the vent in the wall of his room because his mother wouldn’t approve of those subjects, and that Ben can be just as much of a little shit as Richie or Stan when he wants to be. He knows that something, somehow, brought them together. To kill It, yes, but now? Now that It’s dead? What pulls the Losers together now, in that cherry-red web that Stan has described? What binds them all together if not love? 

So, no, Mike doesn’t resent Eddie’s obvious crush on the others. Not even when Richie and Eddie are tumbling around on Mike’s bedroom floor, squabbling in that pigtail-pulling way of theirs, getting just a little more up-close-and-personal than would usually be expected - or accepted - between guy friends.

Mike has a plot brewing in his brain. It’s been brewing for a while, but especially since the seven of them started hanging out more... like he said, it’s been hard to ignore.

It’s just the four of them, now, and with both their boyfriends distracted, Mike leans over to mutter to Stan.

“You know, I think they might have a crush on each other.” 

“You don’t say,” Stan deadpans.

Mike’s heartbeat picks up a little. He hadn’t been sure if his theory was right or not. “Yeah?” 

Stan tosses a hand at them, wrist loose, as if indicating the entirety of their friendship. “It’s been that way for years. Anyway, I can see it.” 

“You see?” Eddie is saying, sitting squarely on Richie’s chest while Richie tries to buck him off, panting. “You see what happens when you challenge me? You get your ass beat.”

If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn't see it. But Mike is looking for it. So he does see it. The way both of them are flushed, and not just from wrestling. The way Richie licks his lips just slightly as his eyes flicker down to Eddie’s lips, and then back up again. And, thanks to... _developments_ that have occurred over the past few months - most in Eddie’s room, in a hushed rush of adrenaline as they tried to stay quiet enough not to alert Sonia - Mike recognizes the signals that Eddie is putting off, too. 

So Mike, quietly, brings up his idea to Stan, and Stan listens thoughtfully, and then sits in silence for a few moments. 

And then he gives a businesslike little nod and says, “It might even shut them up for a while.”

It doesn’t happen immediately. Mike and Stan are good at being patient; they bide their time. But then, two weeks later, the four of them are hanging out in Richie’s room, and it happens. Richie and Eddie are play-fighting, again, always, and they slip up. Or, rather, Eddie does. It looks like muscle memory, like something Eddie does automatically, because he’s so used to doing it with Mike. Richie leans over and bites a chip directly out of Eddie’s hand, and Eddie shoves him, and Richie bats his eyes and plays innocent, and Eddie rolls his eyes - and leans in, shaking his head, going for a vexed but affectionate kiss.

He realizes what he’s doing halfway through the motion and swerves away, color rushing into his face, passing it off by laughing, like it was a joke.

From where they’re sitting on Richie’s bed, working on homework together, Stan nudges Mike. So, heart in his throat - what if this all goes terribly wrong? - Mike speaks up.

“It’s okay,” he rasps, and then clears his throat. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“What?” Eddie says, not really paying attention.

Stan is the one that has the courage to actually say it. “Kiss him.”

Eddie and Richie realize what was just said about a second and a second and a half later, respectively. Their heads whip towards Mike and Stan, _almost_ in unison but half a beat off from each other.

Richie thinks they’re joking. Mike can see it in the twist of his mouth a fraction of a second later, and Richie theatrically wraps his arms around Eddie’s neck, saying, “Well, you heard the captain! Let’s get to it!” Playing. Not serious. Not actually intending to.

But Eddie isn’t as sure that it’s a joke. He laughs nervously and ducks away. “That’s not funny.”

Stan is moving, climbing gracefully down from the bed to sit between them. “It’s not supposed to be funny,” he says. And then, when Eddie and Richie are still shocked and confused into uncharacteristic silence, Stan decides to demonstrate. “Here.”

“Sta-” Richie says, before he’s cut off by Stan’s lips. When Stan leans back, instead of finishing his name, Richie blurts, “What the mother of fuck, Staniel.”

Eddie seems to be thinking the same thing. His mouth has dropped wide open. But then his expression shifts, eyes narrowing. “You two?” he says. Richie is very red. He’s gone stone-still, like a deer in the headlights. He looks almost scared. “You two have -” Eddie goes on, his face bright and animated. “I knew it. I thought there was no _way_ but I _knew_ something was -”

“Okaybutareyoumadatmebecauseifyouarejustsayit,” Richie says in one jumbled breath. For one awful second, it looks like he’s about to cry, and Mike moves down off the bed to put an arm around his shoulder.

“What?” Mike says, not quite comprehending the jumble of words.

But Stan has always been good at understanding Richie when he talks too fast or trips over himself in his rush to get to the next sentence. He’s had years and years of practice. “No one’s mad at you, Richie,” he says softly.

“I’m mad,” Eddie announces. He shifts around where he’s sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the ground, full of energy. “I mean, you two have been together for -?”

Richie’s head bows. His fingers are tightly interlaced, knuckles white. They’re shaking. Mike braces his arm more firmly around his shoulders - _I’m here, I’m here, it’s okay._

Stan shrugs. “Couple years, I guess.”

Eddie shakes his head, lips pressed together. “We could have been complaining about straight people together that whole time, guys.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then all of them laugh at once. It’s a short, tense laugh, but it flushes away the pressure that had been hanging in the air. On Richie’s other side, Stan slips an arm around his waist. Richie peers at Stan out of the corner of his eye, and Stan stares back, his expressions changing minutely as they have some sort of conversation inside their heads - probably some variation on, _are we okay with this?_

Then they’re done, all at once, and Richie nods and gives a shallow sniff.

“I was just joking, Rich,” Eddie amends, “I’m not really mad.”

Richie sniffs one more time, then makes a valiant effort to bounce back, putting on a sly - but watery - smile. “So, do I still get that kiss, or...?”

“You’re incredible,” Eddie mutters, crawling forward, and Richie’s wobbly smile strengthens.

“Who told you?”

Watching them is kind of amazing. Especially since Mike still has an arm around Richie, so he has a close-up view. Eddie commits to it like it’s a challenge, at first, attacking it like he does with many things he’s uncertain about. A preemptive strike - _you can’t surprise me if I surprise you first._ But then Richie kisses back, his jaw visibly working, and one hand lifts slowly, almost reverently to push up into the hair on the back of Eddie’s head, and it slows down. Eddie forgets to attack the challenge and leans into it instead, parting his lips, accepting.

Stan appears abruptly in front of Mike, startling him out of his trance, and Mike’s stomach flutters. They don’t need to say anything; Stan just licks his lips and shuffles a little closer, until he takes up Mike’s entire field of view. 

Kissing Stan is different than kissing Eddie. For one thing, he tastes like Altoids mints, he’s taller, his hair is a different texture between Mike’s fingers, his mouth is a slightly different shape. For another thing, Eddie is a bit of a spitfire; with Stan, it’s like a negotiation. Systematic and exploratory. You opened your mouth? I’ll brush your lower lip with my tongue. You want to put your hand on my side, feel the curve of my ribs? Okay, I’ll climb into your lap then. I won’t let you take control but I’m not quite in the lead either. 

That day, they kiss. And Mike thinks, well, maybe it’s a one-time thing. 

But he hopes not.

A few days later, there’s a snowstorm. Ben, Bev and Bill are cozied up at Bev’s house, as is typical, so the four of them end up at Richie’s place again - and this time, when Richie tugs at Eddie’s wrist with a glance at Stan - who nods permission - it goes on for longer. And instead of just kissing, Stan shocks the hell out of Mike by backing him up against one of Richie’s posters and pushing their hips together - maybe to show Eddie and Richie that it’s all right. And before Mike quite knows what’s happening, time whirls by in a blur of bitten lips and hard heartbeats, and all at once he finds himself grinding gently against Stan, biting back a groan as they hold each other and watch Eddie ease Richie’s zipper down.

Weeks pass, and they can’t seem to stop. Don’t _want_ to stop. Maybe one of them should put the brakes on this, say, _Okay, it’s been fun but that’s enough now._ But no one does. 

And then, in a blink, it’s almost spring, and it’s just as normal for Eddie and Richie to go off by themselves, on a date, as it is for Stan to take Mike somewhere. It’s just as normal for Mike to find himself in Stan’s bed as in Eddie’s, or Richie’s, or for three or all four of them to end up tangled up together for an afternoon.

It’s around the same time that Bev announces that she’s going to make them all disguises.


	6. Ben Sees the Truth

**Spring, 1992**

* * *

We can be heroes

For ever and ever

What d'you say?

* * *

You’d think after everything, Ben wouldn’t still be afraid. You’d think by now his brain would shut up about his friends rejecting him, or secretly hating him, or waking up one day and realizing that he’s a fat disgusting weirdo that spends too much time reading.

Old insecurities are hard to shake. But it’s a little easier to shake them now, now that he can see that they don’t think those things. Not just in their actions or words - he can literally, visually _see_ it. He can always see how people are feeling, if he tries. 

And anyway, he’s not quite the same kid he was three years ago. For the last few years, he’s spent less time sitting alone, reading or watching TV, and more time walking around town with Bill or Bev, or the others, or riding bikes, or swimming in the quarry, or play-fighting with Eddie or Mike. He’s not exactly skinny, like Richie with his beanpole build, or slender like Bev, or muscled like Mike. He still frowns and sighs at the mirror on a near-daily basis. Once a fat kid, always a fat kid, apparently...

He took up running recently. It’s terrible. It’s hell on his legs and lungs and somehow he always manages to come away with a stiff neck or a pulled muscle in his shoulder, even though you don’t even use your shoulders to run, and it makes him wheeze like Eddie without an inhaler. He stops to walk and catch his breath far more often than he’d like to admit. But the pauses are becoming - just barely - shorter. Less frequent. And, as much as he loves his friends to death, Ben is, at heart, an introvert. His runs (well, jogs with walking breaks) are quiet, and cool, and solitary. He uses the time to listen to music and think.

He’s been doing a lot of thinking lately.

The early mornings are beginning to thaw out. He no longer has to wear a hand band to protect his ears from freezing when he jogs. Derry had its yearly Children’s Easter Egg hunt last week, and, as far as Ben knows, all heads remained firmly attached to their respective bodies. It’s been a rainy spring, wet and soaked in the smell of petrichor. The Hanlon farm is full of shaky-legged lambs. 

Ben runs early in the morning because it’s the only time of day when he doesn’t feel eyes on him. The only people awake and out when the world is still gray and quiet are other runners like him, and though he still dreads being passed by someone much faster, at least he never feels like there are people standing in the windows of stores or houses, watching him huff and puff, laughing behind their hands. But sometimes, he wishes he ran during the day more - or at least walked around town more often. He likes the buildings. He likes seeing the people _in_ the buildings, and most of all he likes watching their auras shift and brighten as they move from one place to the next. How people feel safe and invigorated in the glass hallway in the library between the adult and children’s section. How people are affected by the atmosphere of the pharmacy versus the laundromat, or the secondhand shop, or the cafe.

That’s about the extent of his powers, though. In one way, he’s glad. Stan, who struggled for so long to learn to control his patterns, always sounded so miserable about it. At least Ben’s power is fairly non-intrusive to his life - although he’s learned plenty of things about people he never wanted to know. He has no idea why that lady in the movie theater was turned on by a scene about werewolves, and he never wants to know.

But the others... _they_ all have impressive powers. And now that they’ve started using them more regularly again, practicing, they’re gaining greater control over them. They’re being smarter about it - smarter than they were two years ago, which seems like such a long time ago. It seems like they were so young and naive then, with absolutely no idea what they should be doing or how to stay safe.

They’re still learning. But they’re getting better.

Bev’s disguises help. If they trip up, their identities are masked - at least if anyone sees them and starts flipping out, they’ll be yelling, “That guy just vaporized that puddle with his mind!” instead of “Mike Hanlon in particular is some sort of mutant! Take note of the name everybody!”

It’s a safety measure.

They’re not exactly _costumes,_ per se, although Richie was deeply disappointed that they weren’t getting colorful spandex. They’re more like _disguises._ They’re subtle. They’re not meant to stand out and draw attention like, _look at me, I’m a superhero!_ They’re more like, _I could be a normal person. I_ am _a normal person. I just happen to have my hair and face hidden._ Sweatshirts with hoods. Cargo pants or heavy-duty jeans. Bev is working on a way to reinforce the fabric somehow, with some sort of metal mesh, to deflect blades or maybe protect the wearer from impacts. Nothing has worked so far but she’s still plugging away at it, standing for hours at her work table in her room, frowning over her dressmaker’s mannequin. She and Bill have been talking about trying to find some bulletproof vests - and that worries Ben. Nobody needs to be going into situations where they might need bulletproof vests.

Bev would say that he worries too much. But Ben worries just the right amount, in his humble opinion, especially about Bev. Out of all of them, she’s the one that does any significant crime fighting. She wears boys’ clothes - Bill’s mostly, or Richie’s, but whoever’s she can get her hands on - and a hood to cover her hair, and a scarf to cover the lower half of her face. Every once in a while she’ll stop a convenience store robbery or a hate crime. She’s learned to be subtle - inconspicuous. She slips in and out like a shadow, learning to avoid the eye of the occasional security camera, nimble and quiet.

But there are more ways to hurt a person than physically, and Ben worries about the kinds of situations she might recklessly throw herself into if she’s not careful. He doesn’t want her to see anyone get killed, have that image living in her brain for the rest of her life. And moreover, she keeps pushing her limits - what if she finds them? What if nothing hurts her _until_ a certain point, and what if she reaches that point?

The others have been busy as well. Bill continues detective work, here and there, sometimes with the help of Stan or Ben. Eddie prefers to stay under the radar where he can, but he’s gained a slight reputation as a school nurse of sorts. It doesn’t come as a surprise - after all, the first time Ben met Eddie, Eddie was healing him, bending over him with his neat brown hair and his shrill pre-growth-spurt voice, patching him up after Bowers got him. 

The first time they ever truly work together, _all_ together, is when they save Thomas Green from his near-fatal car crash. 

They didn’t see the crash, but they heard it. They were out beyond the edge of town, on a bird-watching expedition, picnic packed in Bev’s bike basket, bikes leaned against trees, when the distant scream of skidding tires made all of them jump. Every bird within two miles’ radius bursts out of the trees and disappears into the sky. A crumpling crash, the sound of ripping metal, and then several more, fainter crashes, like something rolling down a slope. 

Which is exactly what it was, as they discover when they screech to a stop on their bikes in front of the ripped-open metal divider. 

This particular section of back road has thick Maine woods on one side. However, to the south there’s a sharp dropoff, down to a creek below - which, in the spring, becomes swollen with icemelt. 

Stan watches a squirrel leaping between trees. “They swerved to avoid _that,_ ” he says, pointing. The offending squirrel skitters off into the woods, completely unaware and uncaring of the disaster it just caused.

They ditch their bikes and run to the divider, past the fresh, burnt-rubber smelling tire streaks, and peer down. Sure enough, there’s the undercarriage of a car. Halfway underwater. Pieces of metal glint here and there amongst the budding undergrowth and the last vestiges of dirty winter snow. The smell of plastic smoke drifts up from the ravine, stinging in Ben’s nose.

“Holy fuck,” Richie breathes. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Ben says, and points - before he remembers that they can’t see it. There’s a glow. Very, very faint, but it’s there. A sick, writhing mottle of deep red and ugly purples - not colors, really, but that’s the best way he can describe it. There’s a human, down there, and they’re in pain, and they’re scared. “They survived.”

It’s all Bev needs to hear. In no time flat she has one boot up on the divider, and Eddie says, “Bev, wait -”

She’s gone. Plummeting through the air, her dress fluttering around her, hair flying out behind, and then she crosses her arms and hits the water with a _pow._

After her, Mike leads the charge. He climbs over the barricade and starts making his way down, nearly sitting, slip-sliding on his boots and jeans rather than standing and tumbling head over heels. The rest follow in suit. Bev bobs in and out of the muddy water, coming up with a gasp and shaking it out of her eyes each time, trying to see into the increasingly submerged upside-down car. She’s also fighting the current, being pulled consistently downstream.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says as they get near the creek, “Is that Tom’s car?”

Ben’s stomach flips. From here they can make out the bottle-green finish, the shape of the hood. It is Tom’s car.

“I don’t think he’s in the car,” Bev reports, swimming to the shore downstream and pulling herself out by a tree root. “But it’s hard to see.”

“He is.” That’s Bill, crouching by the water. “He’s just not in the driver’s seat, he got into the back somehow. Mike, can you -?”

“On it.”

The water ripples, swirls, and a whirlpool widens around the car, draining it. The car rocks slightly, touches the wet bottom of the creek, and settles. Mike wades into the current like it’s nothing, barely affected by the push of the water.

Glass cuts his arms when he pulls Tom from the wet wreckage, but he barely grimaces - probably because he’s too horrified by what he’s holding.

Ben takes one look and closes his eyes. It’s a reflex; his brain simply does not want to absorb the image of red and white and purple - and that’s not just aura. He’s not the only one. Various cries of disgust and horror rise up from the little crowd as Mike carries Tom to shore and sets him down on the mud. Eddie approaches him, tight-lipped, turns away again, vomits into the creek, and turns back wiping his mouth. Nervousness whips around him in little fluttering tendrils. Ben doesn’t think he’s ever attempted something as extensive as this. Broken bones, faulty livers, sure, but this?

“Rich, go in there and see if his brain is mush,” Eddie snaps off, rubbing his hands as if wishing for gloves. 

“Right.” Richie swallows. “Sure.”

Ben looks for two seconds, and instantly regrets it. Tom’s eyes are open - well, one of them - and he’s staring up at all of them with a silent, pained, wide-eyed confusion. Ben doesn’t need Richie’s power to know that he’s trying to beam desperate _what the fuck just happened to me?_ messages to all of them.

“Anybody home?” Bill prompts, and Richie breathes out a long breath.

“Yeah. He’s a little scrambled, but he’s in there.”

It’s a tense three minutes. Ben tries not to hear the wet crunch of cartilage snapping back into place, or the slick sound of skin and muscles regrowing.

He doesn’t heal everything. It would be awfully suspicious - attention-drawing - if Tom walked away from a rolled car with not a scratch on him. Eddie leaves a few scrapes and bruises, and when Tom finally sits up, groaning, he grabs at his ankle like it hurts.

He makes it up the slope, though. Panting, wincing like he has a stitch in his side, and with the help of Mike - but he makes it. The second they get to the road, Eddie crosses to the bikes, takes out a sandwich from their picnic, and slides down to sit against a tree. His face is gray, and he closes his eyes while he chews, completely spent.

No one has said a word since Tom stood up. Even now, there’s no real spoken agreement, no contract, but Tom looks at them through one healthy eye and one swollen one, and they look at him, and he spits blood - and maybe a tooth - gives them a small begrudging nod, and limps off. Heading towards town to get help. And the Losers get on their bikes, the second Eddie is ready, and coast off, vacating the scene before anybody arrives to inspect the car.

In the days and weeks that follow, they don’t hear a peep from Tom. Not one muttered dig, not one rumor spread around school. He doesn’t so much as look their way when he passes them on the street one day, limping slightly in an ankle brace.

* * *

Ben was at Bev’s house because, well, Ben is often at Bev’s house. In fact, they’re curled up on the couch together under a lot of blankets - despite her insistence that “You’re gonna catch it!” - when Eddie knocks on the door, shadowed by Richie.

“Hey,” he says, “Rich said you had the flu.”

“No, Eddie,” Bev protests, “You’re still recovering from Tom, that took a lot out of you -”

“Aw, he’s fine,” Richie cuts in, ruffling Eddie’s hair. “Hale and hearty enough to wrestle a Richie.”

Eddie elbows him, cheeks flushing red for a second. They’re damp from the misty spring drizzle that falls outside, sweet with the smell of the lilac bushes that grow around Bev’s aunt’s house. But her aunt is at work right now, leaving Bev and Ben to watch daytime TV in the basement, on the moth-eaten couch, with the ping-pong table behind them. Before she left, Ben promised her that he’d keep an eye on her niece and heat up soup and hold her hair back if she hurled, and she ruffled Ben’s hair and said, “I know you will.”

Now, as Eddie comes to perch near Bev’s legs and feel her temperature with the back of his hand, she allows it with an eye roll and a smile. She’s makeup-less today, in ratty old pajamas with rubber ducks printed on them, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. Her nose is red and she has bags under her eyes - apparently she was up most of the night upchucking any food she tried to ingest. She’s been a little better today. She kept her broth down. 

And in Ben’s eyes, she’s as lovely as ever.

Nobody is entirely surprised when Mike and Stan knock on the door. Bev puts up a cursory fight - “Guys, no, come on - I’m gonna give you my ick...” - but Eddie bats away her worries and says, “Give me five minutes, okay? I’ll take care of it.”

And then, just as Eddie proclaims her cured, Bill finds them. 

A little jolt goes through Ben then, with all of them gathered around in the basement, the TV on in the background, just chatting and hanging out. It’s the same thing that always happens when they’re all together, recently.

He’s talked about it with his partners. Bev and Bill have felt it too. A pull. But they haven’t brought it up to the others, because... Well, it’s... it can’t be. That stuff doesn’t happen. Since when does it? They’ve heard of things like _them_ happening, Bill and Ben and Bev - triads like them happen once in a blue moon. At least, that’s what pulp fiction and TV tells them. And as for the others, well, they’re more like... two couples. Right? Two ever-shifting couples. Sometimes Richie and Eddie, Stan and Mike, sometimes Mike and Eddie, Richie and Stan. At least, that’s what Ben assumes. He can’t see exact connections the way Stan can. But _seven_? None of them have heard of anything like that happening.

So they’ve kept quiet.

But... 

Ben has noticed something, over the past few... well, years, if he’s being honest. And the more time passes, the more he wants to do something about it, to bring it up, to at the very least get an _answer._ He just can’t bring himself to say it.

Lucky for him, Stan brings it up first.

“So, I’m not actually here to hang out,” Stan opens, and the light chatter dies down. He sounds serious - well, more so than usual - and they cast him glances that range from curious to concerned.

“G-go on, Stan,” Bill nudges. “What’s up?”

Stan doesn’t beat around the bush. “The web.”

They glance at each other. Ben’s heart begins to kick at his ribs. Stan has talked about the web before - it’s the tangle of vivid red threads that Stan can see, connecting the seven of them by their ring fingers. Ben glances down at his own. It’s a strange sensation, knowing there are intangible threads tied there, he just can’t see them.

“I kept waiting for it to fade over time,” Stan goes on. Now it’s deathly silent except for his voice and the light tap of rain on the wall. “I thought maybe we were tied because of It. I thought after It was dead... it would go away.” 

“Has it?” says Bev, sounding a little afraid, and Stan shakes his head immediately. 

“No. Never. Not even a little bit.” 

Somebody lets out a breath. Little pulses of aquamarine relief light up around the room. 

Stan interlaces his fingers, as if in demonstration. “We’re all... tied together.” He looks up. “Maybe forever.” 

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Mike ventures. “I mean, with the powers, with everything... I dunno what I’d do if I went off on my own without you guys.”

Richie chimes in, “Yeah, who’s gonna stop you all from doing stupid shit if I’m not here?” 

Stan gives him a deadpan look. Bev’s brows crinkle up like, _are you serious?_ Everyone else ignores it. 

Ben finally spits out what’s been lurking on the tip of his tongue. It’s hard to get past his lips; it feels big, monumental even. It’s nerve-wracking to say. Like when he first talked to Bev, warm and kind and quick-witted, with her dimpled smile and luminous eyes. 

“It’s not just that,” he says, and that part was hard enough, it was hard to start - like trying to start biking uphill with no momentum. 

And now all eyes are on him and he has to take a steadying breath to push on to the scary part. He’s held this hope so tightly and jealously in his heart for so long, stuffed way down between his ribs in secret, that he’s sick with anxiety that he was wrong. That he’ll say it, and he’ll see auras dim, expressions twist, and Bev will place a gentle hand on his shoulder and say, _“Oh, Ben, I don’t think...”_ But he presses on. He has to at least try. 

“We’re not just tied,” he says slowly. “We all...” 

_We all love each other. We all want each other. I can see it, I swear. I swear I’m not just imagining it._

But that’s too hard to say. So he settles for, “I love you guys.”

A beat.

Then Bill nods like he understands and says, “Me t-too.”

And then something incredible happens. Bev, hoarse - maybe from being sick, or maybe from emotion - agrees, “Yeah,” and Eddie and Richie, overlapping, say, “Yeah,” and, “I love you guys,” and Mike is nodding fervent agreement and murmurs, “So much.” 

And Stan - Ben knows he’s crying before he sees it, he knows because of the yellow-blue ripple around him - shoves a hand across his face to wipe away the moisture and gives a hard little nod. 

“You too, Stan?” Bev asks gently, when he apparently has trouble getting it out, and he croaks, “Yeah. Yeah, I love you. All.”

They sit in silence for a moment, vibrant zigzags of shock cutting between them, moving through the gray haze of confusion, as they all try to wrap their heads around what just happened.

But now that they’ve all said it, it’s a little easier for Ben to verbalize it for them again, to rephrase and reframe it: “We all love each other. I’ve... been seeing it for years.”

One of them sniffs, Ben can’t tell who, and then Bev sighs, “Oh, thank god,” and launches into a group hug which becomes a dog pile. It’s utter chaos from there. Warm, loud, affectionate chaos, hands squeezing shoulders and stroking hair indiscriminately, all talking at once, laughing, crying -

“That explains so much -” 

“I thought I was the only one -” 

“Thank god, holy shit -” 

And suddenly Richie is pulling back from the dogpile, saying, “Wait, hold on, does this mean I get to kiss Bill? Do I get to - Bill! Can I kiss you?” 

Bill has his hands over his face, laughing, red-cheeked, and when he emerges he glances at Ben and Beverly. “Sh-sh-sh -” 

He gives up trying to say _sure_ with a head shake and leans across Stan to Richie, who kisses him like he’s been waiting years for it. As soon as they part, Richie is reaching out a hand to Bev, grinning, and Mike starts laughing, “Oh, that’s how it is?”

Ben is almost surprised when he gets kissed, too. Well, maybe not _surprised,_ it’s just that he can’t compare to Bill, and he knows it. Or Bev. Or Mike or Stan or Eddie or - well, he supposes that covers it. If Richie’s quest is to kiss everyone, Ben thought for sure he’d be last on the checklist. Not in a jealous or resentful way - the others _deserve_ to be kissed first. But instead he suddenly finds himself the victim of Richie’s clumsy but enthusiastic kiss, cheeks cradled in Richie’s hot palms, and just as quickly Richie’s gone and there’s Eddie to take his place, and he glimpses Bev rubbing noses with Stan before his eyes close, and it’s all so ridiculous and unbelievable and wonderful that he can’t help but laugh. 

The whole time Richie won’t stop broadcasting to all of them, echoing through their heads too loudly, but nobody says one peep in complaint -

_Fuck, I love you guys, I love you so much._


	7. Bev Stands Strong

**Summer, 1992**

* * *

'Cause we're lo ~~S~~ vers

And that is a fact

Yes, we're lovers

And that is that

* * *

Bev’s father has been in the ground for years, but what can she say, old fears die hard. But Bev doesn’t have to be afraid of him hurting her ever again. She doesn’t have to be afraid of _anything_ hurting her ever again.

She’s been doing her best to use the power for good. Why have it if she’s just going to use it for wrapping Christmas presents without getting papercuts, or roughhousing without ever getting a bruise? Learning to do a backflip off a building or flip knives is cool, sure, but she can do more. It seems selfish to go about her life, lah-dee-dah, as if she doesn’t have the capacity to do so much to help people. And if she has the ability, she has the responsibility. 

She’s dissuaded more than one post-bar brawl (and-or beating) just by putting herself in the way. She used to flinch at the sight of a fist or weapon coming at her but it’s old news by now - still, she’s gotten very good at dodging and redirecting, grabbing a wrist and yanking, using the attacker’s own momentum against them to send them stumbling. An agile, lucky teenager is less suspicious than an invincible teenager.

Not only is she getting pretty good at her own cobbled-together version of martial arts, but she’s a pro at being invisible when she wants to. Avoiding the odd security camera in stores, blending in; she has her disguise down to a T. Sports bra and baggy shirt to hide her breasts, hair stuffed up into a cap, loose straight-legged pants, maybe a touch of contouring to make the angles of her face more masculine. She’s getting good at it. 

A mask, sometimes - she can pass off a bandana or a medical mask by acting like she’s sick, like she’s trying to keep her germs to herself. But she has to be careful about that; if she goes to stop a convenience store robbery with a mask on, she could all too easily be taken for another robber. So usually she sticks with the makeup.

She’s been venturing further and further from their little town. There’s only so much vigilanteing you can do in one small town before people start pointing fingers. She’s been to the next town over, and the one to the west. Mike usually drives her.

Well, her and whoever’s with her. She’s rarely alone on her ventures anymore.

Some of the others come with her. Bill, usually - they’ve been doing this together for years. Mike. Richie likes the excitement.

But even besides their ventures to other towns, the Losers haven’t been idle. Eddie attends to them all if they scrape their knee, or cut their finger while cooking, or get a shiner (as Richie did on two separate occasions this year for mouthing off to some frat guys home for the summer). He also tends to tag along on their expeditions to heal anyone who gets hurt, sometimes including the Losers, victims, or even semi-harmless would-be perpetrators. 

Bill can always find them, even if they’re lost. And he constantly discovers misplaced items, from the car keys Richie left in his pocket (that subsequently ended up in his jeans in the laundry basket) to the sewing scissors in Bev’s kit that seem to have a questionable relationship with existence, to the TV remote that somehow ended up in the kitchen, to the mismatched socks that all got eaten by the dryer.

Wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, Richie will occasionally pop into their heads with a witticism, or a flirt, or a random thought, or just to say hi.

No one has drowned in the quarry lately. The town’s water is cleaner and tastes fresher; the Kenduskeag runs clear and is full of little darting fish - the graywater that used to feed into the stream no longer touches it. Mike, too humble for his own good, never brings it up, so the others have to bring it up themselves to praise his hard work.

Stan and Bill work together frequently. _Co-detectives,_ as Bev has coined them. Although, Stan sometimes also works alone. While Bill specializes in discovering and returning lost objects, Stan is more of a mystery-solver.

Ben is fun. Bev can just sit there and start thinking “I love you” thoughts at him, and he’ll glance over and _see_ it glowing around her and go all pink and smiley.

It’s a hot, thick, green summer again - very much like one particular summer, years ago. But then, not very much like that at all. Derry holds its yearly 4th of July parade, Richie and Eddie buy ice cream from the ice cream truck (after chasing it down like lions at the heels of a gazelle), the Barrens are dark and hot and tangled, and the air conditioning unit in the pharmacy has developed a death rattle. Bev and Eddie joke about it every time she goes in with him.

But of course things are a little different this year.

For one thing, for the first time in years, they’re not on the edge of their seats, confused and anxious and high-strung over their powers. While the powers will likely always be a source of some stress - it’s not easy being different from everyone around them - they’re growing more and more comfortable with them. It’s not such a novelty anymore, not such a cause for concern. Sure, they have many of the same round-and-round arguments about safety and identity protection, about every two weeks like clockwork, but at least they’re no longer huddled together rocking back and forth whispering, “What am I?”

For another thing, they haven’t heard a peep from Tom since spring. Of course there’s always Greta, but the more time goes by, the more Bev feels sorry for her. It’s pretty clear that she’s never going to grow out of what she is. At eighteen she’s still the snotty queen bee that she was at fourteen - and queen bees tend to peak in middle school. Without some inner growth, Greta is doomed to a downhill slope. Bev can imagine her at the age of forty, probably still working in her father’s business, complete with teased hair. Popping gum and lifting one eyebrow at customers to show that she disapproves of them. 

After everything Bev has been through, it’s hard to feel threatened - or even bummed out - by a bored teenage girl who’s still riding on her middle school popularity stats.

The sun sets and rises and sets again. Fireflies blink over the lush grass. Occasionally, Bill’s parents remember to put on the masks of good parents and throw a backyard barbeque. 

Life in Derry goes on pretty much as it always has - with a noticeable decrease in child deaths.

* * *

The first time it happens, it’s because they were talking about college.

They haven’t actually all been together yet. Not like _that,_ at least. It’s only been a few months since they got together as a group, and they’ve been having enough ups and downs as it is navigating that alone. Human relationships are complex, messy things - balancing her life and love with Bill and Ben was challenging, but this... well, they have a lot of learning to do.

But thankfully, they have a long time to do it.

They decided to go to college together. Actually, it wasn’t so much of a decision as it was an acknowledgement. Split up after high school? Strike out in different directions, only see each other infrequently and rarely all together, talk only over the phone? They couldn’t imagine it. It was unthinkable. It made Bev’s heart flutter fitfully in her chest every time she thought about it, and Ben would appear at her shoulder and ask what was wrong, rubbing between her shoulder blades. So when Bill brought it up - ever the leader, ever the man with a plan - it was like she unraveled from a secret inner tension that had been coiling around her lungs. Bill’s reasoning was, why not? Why _not_ find a school with a wide variety of majors? Why _not_ pool resources, split costs? Why _not_ get part time jobs, find a place to live, split rent seven ways? Why not?

Of course, that led to slightly more serious topics. Long-term things. Plans. If they went to college together, does that mean they want to be together after college, too? Live together? Take on life together?

They seemed like stupid questions, rhetorical almost. 

And yet. 

And yet talking about that, bringing it up, the concept of always... It was a line they hadn’t acknowledged yet. Not directly. And acknowledging it stirred up other things.

And that’s what starts it.

Bev cranes her neck back to kiss Stan, who’s been sitting behind her on the sofa, giddy and high off of the idea. College! Together! Living together, having a _house_ together, going grocery shopping and having game nights. A new life somewhere, with none of Derry and all of her favorite people, in one place, safe. 

“I want a hammock in the backyard,” she says suddenly, against Stan’s mouth.

“What backyard?”

“Our house.” She grins up at him, then twists to look at the others. “When we move.”

Ben is gazing at all of them like he’s watching a fireworks show - and he probably is, based on the shiver of realization that moves through the group. A house. _Their_ house.

Richie’s hand shoots up. “I want a game room!”

“Bev needs a studio,” Eddie says. “A real one, not just a corner in her room.”

“Foosball table,” Richie is saying, rubbing his hands together like he’s planning something evil. “Wait, no, billiards table. No, ping-pong! A billiards table that _turns into_ a ping-pong table!”

Voices overlap. Gestures and excited chatter.

“- one of those big porches that are glassed in?” Ben is saying.

“We should have a library like in _Beauty and the Beast_!”

“Wait, wait, guys! Private movie theater!”

“I d-dunno if w-we can afford a house that big,” Bill says, but he’s laughing.

“Wind chimes,” Ben says, at the same time that Stan says, “Bird feeders.”

Eddie starts talking over the various points of inspection they’ll have to take note of when they go house-hunting - mice and black mold and faulty pipes. Stan points out that faulty pipes won’t be a problem when Mike’s around.

Stan drops a quick, excited kiss on Bev’s lips. By the sounds of it, voices abruptly dying down, several of the others have the same idea.

Their movie has gone completely forgotten.

They had been partway through _Back to the Future II_ , which they picked up from the video rental store for tonight’s much-anticipated sleepover. (It’s not every day that Bill’s parents are both on a business trip.) It’s Sequel Night - they picked out _Ghostbusters II_ , _Back to the Future II_ and _Gremlins II_. Last time it was Spaghetti Western Night, and Richie annoyed Eddie by repeated “Spaghetti” so many times that Eddie dared him to eat sour candy until he couldn’t feel his tongue. He did it, but it didn’t make him talk less.

The ever-shifting colorful glow of the TV screen illuminates the room. The kitchen light is on, in the next room, and Bev and Mike lit candles earlier. None of them are fond of dark corners, even years after the real nightmare ended, but several of them are vocal about how _you can’t just watch a movie with the lights on, geez!_ So this is usually their compromise. A light on in the next room. Candles. It’s especially atmospheric in the fall, when they watch Halloween movies.

Right now it’s summer, but the candlelight seems increasingly appropriate. In a not-unusual turn of events, the group has devolved from talking to making out. Can you blame them? Put seven teenagers in love with each other in a room together, and, well...

Bev is kissing Stan, at first. He always kisses her like she’s something particularly interesting, like he could unravel her secrets if she would just let him nuzzle his face against hers for a few seconds more. 

Richie is the first one to suggest taking their shirts off, because of course he is. But Mike laughs and actually does it, and Richie has already whipped off his shirt and is waving it around, nearly knocking over a candle and lighting the carpet on fire, and Bev gets caught up in Mike’s infectious laughter and peels her own over her head, and sometime in the next five minutes the pile of clothing items grows taller. Shirts, and then the first pair of pants, and then more.

It’s all downhill from there. 

Bev already knew she got off on seeing the boys together, but she’s never seen them like this - _all_ together. And apparently Richie doesn’t mind the view either, because while Mike, Bill and Eddie are tangled up on the carpet, she and Richie are perched on the couch, pressed together, watching. Ben and Stan were off on the periphery for a bit, whispering with each other, but now Bill branches off to kiss Stan and Ben gets pulled into Mike and Eddie’s pile.

Bev isn’t totally surprised that it’s Richie kissing up her neck from behind, one hand parked firmly between her legs. Since they all got together, officially, this Spring, Richie has been thrilled to bits to attempt with a girl what he had, up ‘till that point, only experienced with a guy. As a result, it’s not unfamiliar territory for them to end up like this. So she’s a little surprised when, instead of whispering a hoarse request to be inside her, Richie eventually ends up under Bill instead. Meaning Eddie, now Bill-less, allows Bev to draw him into a rare kiss while Mike guides her legs over his shoulders, looking innocent as can be, like, _oh, look where I ended up. How funny and not at all intentional._

It’s not long after that she loses track of exactly where everybody is, or even exactly whose skin she can feel against hers. It’s all just warm.

* * *

The morning is one of those unexpectedly chilly summer mornings - maybe it rained a little overnight, cleaning and cooling the sweltering summer air. Cool breeze slips in through the open windows.

Bev eats cereal cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV like she’s a little kid. Beside her, watching the boring early morning programming - it’s too early for cartoons - is Mike, crunching away at his own bowl of cereal.

They’re the only ones up so far, and they have the volume down so low it may as well be on mute. Mike is used to getting up early, and Bev woke suddenly because the cool air from the windows tugged her to the surface of sleep and she was afraid, all at once, that she had dreamed up the past few years. She had a sickening moment of fear that she would sit up and she’d be in her old room in her old apartment, alone. 

Of course, she’s not. She sat up quickly, nearly waking Eddie by jostling his arm where it was draped over her waist. That, plus the scene laid out in front of her, reassured her: it’s all real. They’re real. She’s not back there again, and never will be. 

She knew immediately that someone was missing. Eddie was just behind her on the floor where they spread their sleeping bags, and Richie behind him, forming a three-person spoon train. Ben’s legs were tangled with Richie’s, and he had clearly been holding hands with Stan sometime in the night because their fingers rested millimeters apart. Stan was using Bill as a mattress. 

Mike’s sleeping bag was empty. More accurately, it was unzipped all the way and spread out on top of their dog pile, keeping them all warm.

Bev had gently wriggled free without waking Eddie - a mightier feat than she originally anticipated - and went looking. She didn’t need Bill’s power to find Mike on the back porch, pacing and stretching, enjoying the crisp air.

They whispered together as they poured themselves Lucky Charms. They didn’t want to wake up the others quite yet.

Now, as they poke fun at Good Morning America and watch commercials, a sleepy noise alerts them to a third riser.

“Good morning sunshine,” Bev teases, and Eddie makes a sound like “Mebff,” and _thumps_ his face into her shoulder, pretending to fall immediately asleep again. Or... maybe he’s actually asleep. He may be asleep again. He wakes up long enough to start silently nipping marshmallows out of her bowl, until she notices and pulls it out of his reach.

“Excuse you! Thief. Get your own.”

This, apparently, wakes Bill, whose stirring in turn wakes the Stanley on top of him.

Richie sits up, pulls his blanket over his head like a hood, drops a kiss on top of the nearest head and goes straight for the coffee machine.

Fifteen minutes of yawning later, they all have mugs of coffee and bowls or plates of breakfast - except Bev and Mike, who already finished their cereal. Bev breathes in the steam from her coffee, smiling, and leans back against Mike.

It’s summer. Their disguises are packed away in their bags, ready for use if they decide to go looking for trouble. Bev is already making plans for the exact type of hammock she wants in their future backyard. No child in Derry has disappeared in years. The sun is shining, and she’s with the people she loves.

It’s a good day.

It might even be a good life.


End file.
